Dual six-core Xeons drive ATCA blade

By Eric Brown
2010-03-30

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Adlink announced an AdvancedTCA (ATCA) networking processor blade that incorporates two six-core Intel Xeon L5638 processors clocked at up to 2GHz. The aTCA-6150 is further equipped with an Intel 5520 chipset, up to 48GB of DDR3 memory, both gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and 10-GbE interfaces, and an optional PICMG-compliant, mid-size AMC bay.

Aimed at high-end telecom applications, Adlink's aTCA-6150 is an upgrade to its Xeon L5518-based aTCA-6100, which was announced last year, says Adlink. The aTCA-6150 is designed for carrier-grade applications such as media servers in IPTV, IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) broadband networks, and wireless infrastructures, says the company.

The aTCA-6150 joins GE Intelligent Platforms' A10200 and Kontron's AT8050 among ATCA blades that have embraced the new 32nm-fabricated Intel Xeon 5600. The Xeon 5600 delivers up to 60 percent greater performance than the Xeon 5500, but with platform power consumption that can be 30 percent lower, claims Intel.

The "frequency-optimized" quad-core version of the Xeon 5600 peaks at 3.46GHz with a TDP of 130 Watts, while the six-core version reaches 3.33GHz with a TDP of 130 Watts, according to the company. Like Intel's other new "Westmere-EP" processors, the Xeon 5600 also provides AES-NI (advanced encryption standard new instructions) and TXT (trusted execution technology).

As with GE's A10200, Adlink clocks its two six-core L5638 processors at 2GHz, and a version with dual quad-core L5618 CPUs clocked to 1.87GHz is also said to be available. In either case, the processors offer 12MB L3 cache, and are matched with the Intel 5520/ICH10R chipset, says the company.

Integrated memory controllers are said to support six sockets for DDR3-1066 VLP RDIMM memory up to a maximum of 48GB. Meanwhile, an ATI ES1000 processor with 64MB VRAM supports graphics at up to UXGA resolution, says Adlink.

The aTCA-6150 is equipped with dual gigabit Ethernet interfaces interfaces, dual 10 gigabit Ethernet interfaces, dual front-facing gigabit Ethernet egress ports, and dual gigabit Ethernet XAUI interfaces, says Adlink. A modular fabric riser card for additional PICMG Fabric interface protocols is also available, says the company.

Adlink's latest blade offers 4MB of bootable USB-based NAND flash memory, as well as a 2.5-inch SATA hard disk drive (HDD) bay, and dual SATA-II and dual SAS ports , with RAID 0/1 support, says the company. An optional mid-size AMC bay is said to support AMC.1 PCIe, AMC.2 GbE, and AMC.3 SATA/SAS storage expansion.

Additional front-facing I/O includes three USB 2.0 ports, an RJ-45 to DB-9 standard serial port, and a DB-15 VGA connector, says Adlink.

Specifications listed for the aTCA-6150 include:

Processors -- 2 x 6-core Intel Xeon L5638 processors @ 2GHz (or 2 x 4-core L5618 CPUs @1.87GHz); 12MB L3 cache
Chipset -- Intel 5520/ICH10R chipset
Memory -- Up to 48GB DDR3-1333 via 6 x 240-pin RDIMM sockets
Flash -- 4GB onboard bootable USB NAND flash memory
Storage:
- 2.5-inch SATA bay
- 2 x AMC.3 SATA-II ports (Port2)'
- 2 x AMC.3 SAS ports (Port3)
- RAID 0/1 support
AMC expansion -- AMC.0 mid-size bay with AMC.1 Type 4, AMC.2 E2/Type 4 to Fabric, and AMC.3 S2
Graphics/display -- ATI ES1000 with 64MB VRAM for up to UXGA (1600 x 1200) resolution; 1 x VGA port (front-facing)
Networking:
- 2 x gigabit Ethernet base interface channels (Intel 82576EB); PCIe 2.0
- 2 x 10-gigabit Ethernet fabric interface channels (Intel 82599EB); PCIe 2.0
- 2 x gigabit Ethernet egress ports
- 2 x gigabit Ethernet XAUI ports to RTM
USB -- 3 x USB 2.0 ports (front-facing)
Serial -- 1 x COM port (front-facing)
PICMG ATCA/AMC compliance:
- PICMG 3.0 R2.0 ECN002 (ATCA)
- PICMG 3.1 Ethernet over PICMG 3.0 R1.0, option1/9 (ATCA)
- PICMG AMC.0 AdvancedMC Specification R2.0
- PICMG AMC.1 PCIe and Advanced Switching R1.0
- PICMG AMC.2 gigabit Ethernet R1.0
- PICMG AMC.3 storage interfaces R1.0
Power -- 200 W consumption
Operating temperature -- 32 to 122 deg. F (0 to 50 deg. C)
Dimensions -- 12.7 x 11.0 inches x 6HP (322.25 x 280mm x 6HP); ATCA
Operating system -- Windows Server 2008; Windows Server 2003; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4

Availability

The aTCA-6150 is available now at an undisclosed price. More information may be found here.

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