Hardware Roundup: Intel, ARM, Ixia, Force 10

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

Intel reinvents transistors in 3-D. Intel (INTC) announced a significant breakthrough in the evolution of the transistor, the microscopic building block of modern electronics. Called Tri-Gate, Intel will use a three-dimensional structure in high-volume manufacturing at the 22 nanometer (nm) node in an Intel chip codenamed "Ivy Bridge". "The performance gains and power savings of Intel's unique 3-D Tri-Gate transistors are like nothing we've seen before," said Mark Bohr, Intel Senior Fellow. "This milestone is going further than simply keeping up with Moore's Law. The low-voltage and low-power benefits far exceed what we typically see from one process generation to the next. It will give product designers the flexibility to make current devices smarter and wholly new ones possible. We believe this breakthrough will extend Intel's lead even further over the rest of the semiconductor industry." The 22nm 3-D Tri-Gate transistors provide up to 37 percent performance increase at low voltage versus Intel's 32nm planar transistors. The new transistors consume less than half the power when at the same performance as 2-D planar transistors on 32nm chips.

ARM Memory delivers 90 percent utilization efficiency. ARM (ARMH) announced the release of its fourth generation memory interface solution, comprising the Dynamic Memory Controller (DMC-400) and an ARM Artisan DDR PHY hard macro, targeting high performance, low latency SoC (System on a Chip) applications. Mean primarily for the ARM Cortex-A series processors the controller and PHY (40nm) have already been licensed by a number of major customers such as LG Electronics. The DMC-400 includes advanced memory scheduling to deliver an industry-leading memory utilization efficiency in excess of 90 percent across multiple memory channels as well as integrate with AMBA interfaces, sharing a system-wide QoS that guarantees bandwidth and latency contracts from processor though to external memory. ARM also announced the the release of version 5.0 of the ARM Compiler, and the availability of the ARM DS-5 Professional Edition, which replaces the ARM RVDS toolkit as the reference software development toolchain for ARM processor-based ASICs and ASSP devices.

Ixia Launches Enterprise Testing Solution - Ixia (NASDAQ: XXIA), a leading global provider of converged IP network test solutions, today announced simplified and flexible testing solutions that meet the needs of evolving enterprise data centers. Ixia’s latest IxNetworkTM v6.00 test application introduces a new, intuitive graphical user interface (GUI), productivity tools, and automated test suites. Ixia says its new software overcomes enterprise testing barriers such as steep learning curves, insufficient test reproducibility, and poor return on investment (ROI).

Force 10 integrates Intel cloud access software. Force 10 Networks announced that they have entered into an agreement designed to integrate cloud single sign-on (SSO) with Force10 top-of-rack (ToR) switches utilizing cloud access control software from Intel Corporation. As a part of Force 10's Open Cloud Networking (OCN) framework they incorporate the Intel Expressway Access 360 software into their top-of-rack switching solutions. “Single sign on, account provisioning, and strong, second factor authentication are foundation cloud-enablement capabilities demanded by enterprises before fully embracing the cloud. As Force10 embeds Intel Expressway Cloud Access 360 into their cloud-bursting infrastructure, the market will benefit from a new level of enterprise-class security applied to cloud bursting scenarios where applications and access are enabled on-demand,” said Girish Juneja, director, application security and identity products at Intel. “We expect the combined solution will help move the Enterprise beyond tightly controlled private clouds to more scalable, open public cloud deployments.”