AMD is introducing custom 64

Similar to the way it made customized chips for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, Advanced Micro Devices is willing to make custom ARM server chips to suit the needs of the customer. During a presentation at the Hot Chips conference in Cupertino, California, Sean White who is an engineer with the company explained that the company will consider customizing its 64-bit ARM server processors to meet specific customer needs, as the market for these new types of servers expands.

He further explained that ARM chips are mostly used in mobile devices but interest continues to grow in using the low power processors for Web-hosting and cloud applications.

The company also designs x86 chips on which it competes with the more dominant Intel. Intel is also already making custom processors based on the Xeon chips for large data centers like eBay. AMD increased its focus on custom chips since last year as evident decrease in the PC market became apparent. Because of the millions of gaming consoles being shipped, the company is already making strong custom chip revenues.

At Hot Chips, the company also shared the technical details of its 64-bit ARM processor called Opteron A1100, code named Seattle. It has two DDR3 and DDR4 memory channels and will have up to 4 MB L2 cache with two cores sharing 1MB. A new specification to the ARM chips is the ECC memory, which is essential for servers to correct data errors. Other features include, engines to encrypt and decrypt data, along with compression and decompression of data. The company has started shipping a reference board with the Seattle processor to pick customers that want to write and test applications.

Lim has joined Argyll Free Press as an author. He has worked as Staff Reporter for many major websites. Having earned his degree in Journalism from the Sheffield Hallam University, completed his internships, working at international news agencies, giving him exposure in the field of news reporting.