Xeon, Atom Chips for Micro Servers on Intel’s Roadmap

Intel officials are looking to use a combination of low-power “Sandy

Bridge” Xeon chips and Atom

processors to build out their portfolio of products for ultradense micro

servers.

Executives with the giant chip maker first talked about micro

servers in 2009, describing high-performance, energy-efficient systems that

share resources and target such environments as large data centers and service

providers, where density and low costs are important.

For Intel, offering processors for such systems is increasingly important as the

company looks to address an emerging challenge from ARM

Holdings and partners that use its designs to create low-power chips. ARM-based

chips from the likes of Qualcomm and Samsung dominate such high-demand markets

as smartphones and tablets, and now ARM

officials are looking to expand

into the data center in such arenas as cloud computing and Web hosting.

Vendors such as Marvell, Nvidia and Calxeda are working to build ARM-based

processors that can be used in such systems.

During a press conference March 15, Boyd Davis, general manager of Intel’s Data Center

Group, said such low-power servers can eventually account for as much as 10

percent of the systems market, and that Intel over the next two years will

offer a range of Xeon and Atom processors to meet that demand.

For more, read the eWEEK article: Intel Plans Xeon, Atom Chips for Micro Servers.