* Newisys chipset could enable 64-way servers
Server vendor Newisys is aiming higher than two- and four-processor AMD Opteron-based machines with the introduction of a new chipset.
At the Hot Chips show last month Newisys demonstrated a 32-way chipset code-named Horus, after the Egyptian god of the Sun.
Newisys has been working on the application-specific integrated circuit for Horus for three years. It is based on the Opteron processor, which scales from two to eight processors. Horus has cache coherency, which allows it to scale to 32 processors. The chipset links four Opteron processors on a single board. The board uses HyperTransport to cluster as many as four Opterons and keep the cache coherent.
The Horus architecture is similar to IBM’s Summit xSeries and Power servers.
When AMD introduces dual-core Opterons next year, Horus-enabled servers will be able to scale to 64 processors.
Newisys’ servers are resold by Sun and Verari Systems. The Sun boxes are the two- processor Sun Fire V20z and the four-processor V40z.
Newisys, a start-up in Austin, Texas, was acquired by Sanmina-SCI in July 2003. The company was founded by two ex-IBMers, Phil Hester and Clay Cipione. Hester and Cipione worked on IBM’s RISC and Intel-based workstations. Another ex-IBMer, Newisys CTO Rich Oehler, designed IBM’s RISC and PowerPC processors.
The technology is expected to be available by year-end.
