Arm Announces Neoverse N1 & E1 Platforms & CPUs: Enabling A Huge Jump In Infrastructure Performance
by Andrei Frumusanu on February 20, 2019 9:00 AM ESTEnd Remarks: Strengthening the Infrastructure Ecosystem
If there’s one thing that readers should take away from today’s presentations, it’s the fact that Arm is taking the infrastructure and server push extremely seriously. The last year in particular has been transformative for the Arm ecosystem as we’ve for the first time seen Arm vendor platforms be competitive with the major incumbents such as Intel and AMD.
The elephant in the room is Amazon, and last year’s reveal of a new AWS instance based on their own-in house ARMv8 Graviton processors marked a significant moment showcasing that Arm is now irrefutably becoming mainstream in the industry.
While Arm did not divulge any information on who will be employing the new Neoverse N1 platforms first – I would not be surprised if the next generation Graviton processor will based on the N1 CPU.
The N1 CPU looks to be an excellent CPU that targets a sweet-spot point between peak compute performance, overall throughput. And most importantly it maintains the leading power efficiency that is already found in Arm's mobile products. Arm has high hopes for N1 and its eventual successors, and for good reason: they're looking to steal market share away from the likes of Intel (and x86 servers in general), which has proven to be an entrenched market full of very high performance processors. For that reason Arm is bringing their best to the table, and while N1 isn't going to be a core-for-core competitor with flagship x86, it stands to pose a significant threat, especially in workloads that can easily scale up to a larger number of cores.
Meanwhile the new E1 CPU targets the expanding market for high throughput processors, which with the upcoming shift to 5G will require more throughput performance at low power levels. Here Arm seems to have custom-tailored a CPU specifically to serve such use-cases. This is a move that's arguably less about stealing market share from any one player, and more about being in the right place at the right time to secure their place in what should be a rapidly growing market. In that sense the E1 is a very traditional Arm move – focus on cost and simpler processors – and this has been a move that's continued to serve Arm well over the years.
Although the new hardware IP is impressive, what also matters greatly is Arm’s efforts into strengthening the Arm software ecosystem. Working with various industry hardware and software partners in trying to facilitate the software stack and interoperability with Arm not only benefits vendors using Arm’s own hardware IP, but also vendors who chose the route of employing their own custom CPU and SoC designs. Similarly, those vendors who are trying to improve and strengthen their own products will inevitably feed back into strengthening the Arm ecosystem as well – creating essentially what is a group effort between many companies that in the future will continue to gain momentum.
It's said that the Neoverse N1 will be commercially deployed by partners in the next 12-18 months, and I think this will be a crucial moment for Arm and the company’s server endeavours. If the major breakthrough in mind-share hasn’t already happened, if all goes well and Arm and partners deliver on the promised improvements, the next 1-2 years will certainly represent a major shift in the industry.
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eastcoast_pete - Thursday, February 21, 2019 - link
I stand corrected on IBM still selling x86 servers (they don't), and am actually glad to hear that Power is also used in smaller shops. It's just that I haven't run into too many Power systems around here. It's a very capable arch.Kevin G - Thursday, February 21, 2019 - link
The big Power users are also the big cloud providers. Google and Amazon have reportedly taken a liking to openPower hardware. Facebook has reportedly looking into openPower as well. Granted this are small scale compared to the number of x86 systems these companies have, it was a much need shot of energy into the Power platform.nevcairiel - Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - link
Microsoft already ported Windows Server to ARM, and their entire development stack has support for ARM and ARM64 now, so its only a matter of time for the other server products to be made available.HStewart - Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - link
It really funny that Microsoft did not trust that environment enough to created Surface using ARM processor.GreenReaper - Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - link
Uh . . . that's reportedly because Intel came begging them *not* to for the Surface Go 2018 (and probably cut them a very nice deal on the Pentium Gold as a result): https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/microsoft-surfac...As mentioned, you can also compile for 64-bit ARM in VS now. This is a major win for some apps which truly require native execution (which is not all of them, but enough to be a pain):
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/11/15/...
Will it actually become a viable platform as a result of all this? I suspect it still won't be the default in five years, but in cost-conscious areas it could end up with a foothold. Even if Microsoft doesn't go down that route, it may be open for others to do so for specific purposes, such as education.
eastcoast_pete - Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - link
Not funny; rather, cautious. None of the A76 designs were in silico when MS designed the current Surface. When you specc out a design like the Surface, you base it on what's available at that time, not what might be around next year. Otherwise, the chance of ending up with egg on one's face is uncomfortably high.eastcoast_pete - Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - link
I agree with you, but, as we all know, businesses buy the hardware that can run the software they want or need, not the other way around. In this regard, I am curious if Oracle and SAP are porting their offerings to ARM64 server. If both of those are on board, this design would have a great chance to get strong traction.HStewart - Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - link
One thing that I am concern in this article is that this chip is mark as Simulated in charts which to me is just a marketing term. Also it comparing again existing 2018 designs for both Intel and AMD. An actual fair comparison with Sunny Cove based cpu with more units and such.I also think that just increase cores is not the best way to handle performance, in todays world single core performance is still very important but this depends on the market the chip is intended for but the important part is software compatibility.
Antony Newman - Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - link
H.A Simulated vs Historical point was made in the article. Perhaps you need to reread?
Also : Single Core performance is very important - especially when they are all running flat out.
Intel has to throttle down their multi core beasts so the chips don’t catch fire at 14nm.
At 10nm - Intel will be able to sustain a few more cores before throttling.
And before Intel are at (Intel) 7nm, ARM will likely overtake Intel on the IPC front (assuming that ARM’s ‘prediction is as accurate as my own)
AJ
eastcoast_pete - Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - link
Single core is still important for client computers, but much less so for servers.