For months, even years, IT players and analysts have been saying how the ARM architecture won't ever score big on the server market if it doesn't offer 64-bit support, but this barrier has finally been brought down. Following the revelation of deals signed for the use of the ARM v8 architecture, which supports 64-bit registers, the first server based on a v8-compliant processor has been revealed.
It isn't any specific server implementation that we are really interested in, however, but the actual chip that powers it.
Part of the X-Gene line, the “server-on-a-chip” is a multi-core ARM v8 with L1, l2 and L3 cache, a high-performance memory subsystem, cloud server I/O (Integrated Ethernet and peripheral interfaces), Coherent fabric, SOC peripherals and associated bridges, plus system memory that can host Linux and server software.
"This is the first time the world is seeing a mature, fully-functional server platform running a real-world application on 64-bit ARM-based processor," said Vinay Ravuri, vice president and general manager of processor products at AppliedMicro.