Freescale unveils multithreading network processor range
1 min read
In a move described as a major announcement for its networking business, Freescale has launched a new product family within its QorIQ range. Called the Advanced Multiprocessing series, or AMP, the devices feature a new multithreaded 64bit Power Architecture core, acceleration engines and power management techniques.
The first product to be announced is the T4240. With 12 dual threaded e6500 cores, the device is planned to sample in Q1 2012. Compared to the P4080, currently the most capable device in the QorIQ range, the part is said to boost performance by a factor of four, whilst doubling power efficiency in terms of MIPS/W.
Piotr Weglicki, networking and multimedia group marketing manager, said: "We have been following Moore's Law for some time, but it's not enough." He quoted figures from AT&T, which says data traffic increased by a factor of 30 in the three years from Q3 2007 to Q3 2010. "It's a huge challenge which can't be solved by traditional methods," he continued. "Customers need increased performance, but within a given power budget."
The AMP series is built around the 64bit e6500 core, which can run at up to 2.5GHz. The core includes an enhanced version of the AltiVec vector processing unit. Performance and power efficiency has been delivered by moving the design to a 28nm foundry process.
Three flavours of AMP parts will be available, allowing customers to build multiple products. Control plane processors will have up to six cores running at up to 2.5GHz with more than 6Mbyte of L2 cache memory. High end data plane processors will have up to 12 cores running at up to 2GHz, with dual threading providing up to 24 virtual cores. Finally, low end data plane processors will have up to four cores running at up to 1.6GHz, with dual threading providing twice the number of virtual cores.
The P4080 dissipates 30W, which means the T4240 will generate 60W. But Weglicki said the industry is now more relaxed and 'can deal with higher dissipations than 30W'.
