Skip to main content

New Atom chip for microservers launches By Intel

Intel launched a data-center chip using low-power technology found in smartphones, stepping up competition in the nascent microserver market and winning a nod from Facebook.





The Atom chip rolled out on Tuesday uses much less electricity than Intel’s previous processors for servers and comes as Intel’s rivals also eye the low-power server niche.

Energy-sipping chips similar to those used in smartphones and tablets lack the horsepower of traditional server processors made by Intel. But data centers that combine many low-power chips instead of just a few heavy-duty processors may provide more computing power for less money, and use less electricity.

Microservers have yet to gain serious traction with traditional corporate customers like banks and manufacturers, and the potential size of the market remains unclear.

But Internet giants like Facebook, Amazon.Com and Google have been experimenting with ways to use low-power chips to make their data centers more efficient.

At an Intel event launching the Atom chips, a Facebook infrastructure executive said the social network has found that low-power chips excel at processing the 4.5 billion updates, likes, posts and comments its 1 billion active users add to the site every day.

“We do face unprecedented scale at Facebook, and that’s one of the reasons we’re so highly motivated to figure out the most efficient way to scale infrastructure efficiently and support all the people using Facebook,” said Frank Frankovsky, Facebook’s VP of hardware design and supply chain. He did not say whether Facebook expects to buy Intel’s new chips.

Frankovsky said “wimpy” low-power chips in some cases can do the same work as Intel’s “brawny” Xeon chips while consuming half or a third as much power.

“How much useful work can you get done per watt per dollar? That’s the only metric that matters,” Frankovsky said.

Intel dominates the PC and server markets, but was slow to design chips for the mobile market, where chips using technology from ARM Holdings have become ubiquitous.

In October, ARM unveiled new chip designs aimed at microservers. ARM believes servers using low-power chips based on its designs could account for a fifth of data centers by 2020.

Diane Bryant, in charge of Intel’s data center business, declined to say how large Intel believes the microserver market could become. She said the Atom chips have been chosen for over 20 upcoming products focused on microservers, storage and communications.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Samsung GALAXY S Advance Advanced in Style & Power

The Galaxy S Advance from Samsung is embedded with all latest features available in other galaxy series smart phones. It is surely the best in this price range. It offers you with a large 4 inch curved glass screen and super AMOLED display technology, good 5 megapixels camera, powerful 1GHz dual core processor and good memory space. Galaxy S Advance Features: •    Visually Spectacular: Stylish users will enjoy showing off their new mobile especially with the large 4" curved glass screen and premium finish. As comfortable to use as it is to look at, the fit is perfect in the palm and next to your ear for calling. •    Powerful in Performance: The Dual Core computer-grade processor offers outstanding performance for your mobile. It’s powerful enough to handle your mobile’s needs including rich graphics required by high-spec games, web browsing and watching HD video. •     Enrich Your Mobile Experience: This mobile comes packed wit...

Samsung SCH-W2013 flip phone with 3.7-inch dual-screen, Android ICS announced for China

Back in December 2011, Samsung surprised us all by announcing the SCH-W999, a dual-screen Android 2.3Gingerbread running flip phone. And now, almost a year later, Samsung has announced the SCH-W2013 which is again expected to be a ridiculously expensive Android Smatphones . Specifications: Dual-3.7-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen Display resolution of 800 x 480 pixels 1.4 GHz quad-core processor (likely Exynos 4412) 2 GB RAM 16 GB Internal memory Expandabe to 64 GB 8 MP rear facing camera 1.9 MP front camera  Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich  OS Dual-SIM support with CDMA2000 800/1900 and GSM 900/1800/1900 frequency 1850 mAH battery Going by the specs on the interior, the Samsung SCH-W2013 is indeed a beast on-par with the Galaxy Note II and is indeed a unique but the display resolution is a setback but going by the screen size it is good enough too. While the SCH-W2013 is a good smartphone, one bad thing about it is the price tag that the...

Samsung Galaxy Android camera with Internet connection is the best

The Samsung Galaxy Camera announced this year in August has hit the market. This much appreciated Androidcamera is one of the most advanced, impressive and a good gadget said initial reviews. Mashable says this Samsung Galaxy Camera an incredible device and is a very successful merger of Android with a point-and-shoot camera. . “Samsung‘s daring attempt to combine Android with a serious compact camera has created what could be the gadget of the year says a review by Pete Panchal. Reuters says this camera lets the users to “connect to a mobile network or Wi-Fi to share photographs and video without having to hook up the camera to a computer.” An earlier Cnet Review on 16 November gave it a simple three and a half star rating saying “Outside of its relatively high cost of ownership and average point-and-shoot picture quality, the Samsung Galaxy Camera definitely delivers the shoot-and-share experience of a smartphone with the features of a compact camera.” But in its lat...