Intel is bringing its “Nehalem” Xeon architecture to the embedded, networking and storage spaces with the release of its “Jasper Forest” processor family.
The new Xeon C5500/C3500 series, rolled out Feb. 11, offers PCI Express and all I/O functions integrated onto the dual-core chips. In addition, the new offerings lower power consumption by 27 watts compared with the Xeon 5500 series chips, which are used in servers.
The new chips, coupled with Intel’s 3420 chip set, are aimed at such dense storage and communications environments such as IPTV, on-demand video, VOIP (voice over IP), NAS (network-attached storage), SAN (storage-area network) and wireless radio controllers, according to Intel officials.
“The communications and embedded market segments are demanding higher computing densities,” Rose Schooler, general manager of the Performance Products Division of Intel’s Embedded and Communications Group, said in a statement.
Integrating PCIe-with its throughput speed of 1Gbps-and such storage features as RAID acceleration and non-transparent bridging for high-availability failover means that vendors can design a wide array of systems that share a common architecture, according to Seth Bobroff, general manager of Intel’s Data Center Group, Storage.
“This announcement extends the powerful performance of Intel Xeon processors into other key areas of the data center, including storage,” Bobroff said in a statement.
Intel announced eight processors in the series, ranging in price from $192 to $530, per 1,000 units shipped.
Sample chips currently are available to customers now, and will be generally available within 90 days, according to Intel.
The chip maker also listed several vendors that are rolling out products based on the new Xeon C5500/C3500 series, including the Caswell CAR-5000 two-socket rack-mount networking appliance, Kontron’s AM5030 double-wide AdvancedMC module for dense server environments, and Lanner’s FW-8910 rack-mouth dual-socket appliance.