Freescale releases new AMP series to combat data traffic

Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) recently announced a new generation multi-core platform called the Advanced Multiprocessing (AMP) series and is billing it as the chip-maker’s biggest draw in several years.
The new product platform aims to increase positioning in the networking field and is based on a multi-threaded 64-bit power architecture core that can use up to 24 virtual cores. In an interview with RCR Wireless News, Preet Virk, director of segment marketing for networking at Freescale said that the AMP launch is built around customer needs and is the highlight of the company’s event this week in San Antonio.
“We are always asking our customers what we can do to help them out,” said Preet Virk, director of segment marketing for networking at Freescale. “The new AMP series is an answer to our collaboration with customers to provide them solutions so their time-to-market and their project risks are lowered.”
Through using an integration of acceleration engines and power management systems to increase performance and efficiency of power, the AMP series will offer QorIQ processors at a 28-nm process node and bypass the 32nm-process technology generation completely.
Officials from Freescale said that wireless and wired infrastructure along with data centers are clearly showing that Internet traffic is exploding and creating a large demand for communication processors, which the company is hoping to fill.
Freescale said that the new AMP series is based on similar ideas to that of its QorIQ Qonverge family, which was launched earlier this year. The QorIQ Qonverge offers a scalable multimode wireless base station processor family that scales from smaller femto and pico cells to larger metro and macro cells by sharing a common architecture via a multi-core communication processor, multi-core DSPs and baseband accelerator infrastructure.
Freescale said it will offer customers code compatibility with all PowerQUICC, QoIQ Qonverge and QorIQ processors to aid migration, configuration and optimization for specified products.
The company plans to offer the AMP series in three levels with each product carrying a changing number of cores, different degrees of parallel technology, varying programmable requisites, along with differing application acceleration and power efficiency. The three levels include: lower-end data plane processors which target media gateways, network attached storage and integrated services routers; higher-end data plane processors for routers, switches, access gateways and mil/aero application; and control plane processors for storage networks and service provider routers.
In a separate interview, Joseph Byrne, senior analyst at The Linley Group noted, “In the long run, the scalability and software compatibility among Freescale’s communications processors may be just the thing that differentiates its products from competitors.”
Byrne added, “The general idea [of software compatibility] is that it is easier for an OEM to use a compatible family of processors throughout a product line than a different type of processor for each design, because software is more easily reused among members of a compatible family.”
“Broadly speaking, it also gives third-party tools and software developers a broader base of products to support, making it economical for the ecosystem to support the family,” Byrne concluded.