More details emerge about ARM-based AMD Opteron A1100 processor series

TechRadar Pro met with Suresh Gopalakrishnan and Ian Drew last week during an ARM/AMD briefing in London; Suresh is Corporate VP and GM of AMD's Server BU while Ian is ARM's CMO. The joint event symbolised the strong relationship between the two companies.

The global annonuncement of AMD's first ARM-based server SoC (system-on-chip), otherwise known as the Opteron A1100, happened end of January 2014 with Suresh confirming that the first samples would be shipped by end of March 2014 with full production happening by the end of the year.

Née "Seattle", this part, which is part of the top-bin (i.e. the fastest parts from a particular batch) is built around eight 64-bit ARM Cortex-A57 cores clocked at 2GHz and fabbed at 28nm. Other useful titbits include a TDP of 20W, 4MB L2 cache and 8MB shared L3 cache.

A well-connected SOC

Additional onchip features an intriguing additional Cortex-A5 system control processor plus an unidentified crypto/compression coprocessor, a DDR3/DDR4 memory controller and a raft of connection options (10GbE, SATA 3, PCIe Gen 3, I2C, UART) (but no support for Freedom Fabric).

Gopalakrishnan also confirmed to TechRadar Pro that more SKUs will be released in due time including one with four cores and/or running at slower speeds.

What's surprising is the size of the board housing these, slightly larger than a phablet according to AMD's Corporate VP.

Up to 12 of these boards, based on AMD's Open CS-A platform, can be fitted in a 1U rack, which means up to 504 in a common 42U full height rack (that's 4032 cores) with up to 32GB of RAM (max 128GB) and 8 SATA ports per board.

AMD declined to give details about the exact performance of the parts although experts put the estimated SPECint_rate figures at 80 (or 10 per core), that's up to 4x the performance of the x86-based Opteron X-series parts.

ARM's Ian Drew also added that most data centres are I/O constrained rather than performance constrained, a scenario that called for more targeted processors rather than the hitherto one-size-fits-all paradigm.

ARM ready to take on x86 in servers

He explained that the three reasons why ARM is now coming to data centres are tied to the rise of data, big and small, a wider industry support (from manufacturers and ODMs/OEMs) plus a massive improvement in efficiency.

ARM-based servers are expected to account for 25 per cent of the market by volume by 2019 according to Gopalakrishnan, a very conservative number that underlines AMD's reluctance to drum up its ambitions for ARM.

A development kit for the Opteron A1100 will also be available to select developers; it's a fairly bland-looking microATX motherboard that supports a standard PSU but ladden with useful applications.

Expect AMD's first ARM product to be readily available by year's end in the likes AMD's Seamicro servers as well as Boston's and HP's Moonshot range.

• Check out our interview of Dennis Laudick, video president of partner marketing at ARM, about ARM's recent acquisition of Geomerics.

First Great Western details free onboard Wi-Fi plan

Free Wi-Fi will be rolled out across the First Great Western fleet of trains next year. Nomad Digital has concluded an agreement with the train company that will see free internet access across all of the operator's lines in 2014 as well as on overnight services.

Wireless internet connectivity will be installed on all 53 of First Great Western's high-speed trains and Night Riviera services. This will be done as part of the company's new 23-month franchise.

The company first pledged to add the free Wi-Fi service in October this year. Work on fitting their fleet of trains will begin in May 2014, with the rollout set to be completed by the end of the same year. Passengers on the two daily Night Riviera services will also be able to access free Wi-Fi from June 2014.

Well received

Mark Hopwood, managing director of First Great Western, explained that the company had trialled the service on a fleet of trains serving the North Cotswolds. The proposition had been "very well received" by customers.

Customers on the train service will only need to have the ability to connect from their laptops or mobile devices to use the feature, regardless of their location in the train compartments. Any browser opened by them will automatically redirect them to the access page.

"I'm delighted to say that within the next year all high-speed and sleeper fleet customers will be able to read their emails, browse the web or simply catch up with friends on the move," he added.

Nomad Digital has seen vast increases in demand for Wi-Fi and other wireless connected services on trains worldwide over the past year. Andrew Taylor, Nomad's CEO, said that the company was "proud to be providing the technology as well as playing a central part in such a valuable service."

• Top tips for your WiFi security