New task group will deliver open reference designs for organizations such as Open Compute Project, Scorpio, Financial data centers, supercomputers and data center OEMs based on RapidIO
AUSTIN, TEXAS, July 18, 2013 − The RapidIO Trade Association (RTA), today announced the creation of a Data Center Compute and Networking (DCCN) task group for the development of reference designs for use in data center, enterprise servers and supercomputing. The task group will be based on industry wide collaboration, with the target of using products and solutions based on the RapidIO interconnect open standard to serve the computing and switching infrastructure needs of these target markets. It is the first initiative from inside the RTA to take the collective expertise from member companies and aggregate it beyond the semiconductor interconnect level to the application level while leveraging the low latency, low power, reliability and peer-to-peer processing architectures of the RapidIO Standard.
The low energy consumption of hardware enabled RapidIO endpoints, 100 ns latency of switches as well as microsecond end-to-end packet termination latency, are attractive attributes for multiprocessor compute intensive applications. Many of the multiprocessor requirements of embedded systems are being adopted in servers and supercomputing. Built in reliable data transmission at the protocol level has always been required in embedded systems and it is increasingly required in mission critical servers and supercomputing systems. All of the above has resulted in the end market pull for the RTA to initiate this Data Center Compute and Networking task group.
The task group is being founded by Freescale, IDT, Prodrive, Mobiveil and the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras which is planning to leverage the outcomes to develop its own super computing infrastructure. The task group will be lead by Prodrive, a solutions specialist of both switching and compute modules that leverages RapidIO standard infrastructure and ecosystem.
The outputs of this task group will be submitted to other open standards in the computing industry (e.g., Open Compute Project and Scorpio) and will also be available for use by OEM’s of computing and data center infrastructure, research labs and government organizations. Other RapidIO member companies are invited to actively participate in the task group and help to create and edit reference designs. The RTA also encourages semiconductor, software and systems companies to join the RTA to bring their inputs into the direction of this project.
“The kick off of this task group inside the RTA fits nicely with the industry’s mandate of improving the cost, efficiency and power of data centers, through end user driven collaborative innovation. Chairing the Datacenter Computing and Networking task group is an excellent opportunity to help drive the Data Center Compute and Networking market. The RapidIO technology will be a great differentiator in this market and our proven track record with peer-to-peer RapidIO enabled multiprocessor systems will give RapidIO a competitive start. Prodrive has a high level of vertical integration, which gives us the capability to look at all aspects from a system point of view.” Said Pieter Janssen, CEO at Prodrive.
“This initiative is exactly the collaborative environment we are looking to contribute to. In India, we are developing domestic supercomputing infrastructure, leveraging open standards. We had already converged on RapidIO being the optimal interconnect for our needs over Ethernet and Infiniband, but having industry collaboration to take RapidIO solutions up to the system level is an added benefit. Our team will be actively contributing as we have also introduced a RapidIO Open IP core to the overall ecosystem, ” said V. Kamkoti, Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.
The RapidIO Trade Association is excited about the kick off of this Data Center Computing and Networking task group,” said Stephane Gagnon, Chairman of the RTA Steering Committee. “We are leaders in 4G wireless base station interconnect. Over the last 7 years, we have grown our penetration from zero to 100% in macro base station. The best system latency, peer-to-peer reliable communication, and low system power that made RapidIO a winner in wireless is resulting in early adoption in computing markets. The goal of this task group is to accelerate the adoption of RapidIO in markets beyond wireless infrastructure by providing turn-key system level solutions to RapidIO’s end customers in the datacenter computing and networking markets.”
About the RTA:
The RapidIO Trade Association, a non-profit corporation controlled by its members, directs the future development and drives the adoption of the RapidIO architecture. The RapidIO architecture promises lower-latency, increased bandwidth efficiency, lower cost and lower power. Interested companies are invited to join the RapidIO Trade Association to gain access to the standards development process. Detailed information on the RapidIO specification, products, design tools, member companies, and membership is available at www.RapidIO.org.