The latest AMD weapon in server domination might be less powerful, but is also growing in popularity-- the company will start using ARM designs (in addition to x86 architecture) in data centre processors.
The first ARM-based AMD server processor, a "highly-integrated, 64-bit multicore System-on-a-Chip (SoC)," will go for cloud and data centre use and should enter production from 2014. It will integrate high-performance fabric in the shape of SeaMicro Freedom Fabric supercompute technology.
AMD bought microserver (servers using hundreds of "wimpy cores") specialist SeaMicro for $334 million back in March 2012.
AMD is not the only company working on ARM-based servers-- Dell uses ARM processors in the prototype "Copper" server, HP has Project Moonshot and the Penguin UDX1 carries Calxeda EnergyCore SoC.
Interestingly enough, Nvidia might also move towards the ARM-based server trend. In a recent interview with The Inquirer, Nvidia Tesla Accelerated Computing GM Sumit Gupta says "over the next one or two years these ARM SoCs will be good enough for cloud applications and web serving." Nvidia is an ARM licensee and its GPUs sometimes find use in supercomputers, such as Cray's Titan.
Then again, Intel is also an ARM license... Will it drop the x86 format in the future? The mind boggles.
Go AMD First to Bridge x86 and ARM Processors for Data Centre
Go Nvidia Says High Performance ARM Servers Are a Few Years Off (The Inquirer)
