ADLINK’s Ampere Altra Developer Platform with Arm SystemReady Certification
April 07, 2022
News
ADLINK Technology announced the availability of the Ampere Altra Developer Platform based on the COM-HPC Ampere Altra module, the world’s first 32/64/80-core COM-HPC based server type module with the performance and scalability necessary to drive a variety of use cases across the cloud-to-edge development communities.
Examples include real-time applications that require reliable and predictable processing of computationally demanding workloads like medical imaging and robotic surgery, stationary and mobile robotics, autonomous driving, test and measurement to multimedia broadcasting, and more.
Backed by a broad Arm ecosystem with an Ampere Altra SoC at its core, using the Arm Neoverse N1 platform, the Ampere Altra Developer Platform provides suitable performance from an cloud-to-edge infrastructure, keeps a low thermal envelope, low TCO, and low power consumption when compared to x86 designs.
The COM-HPC Ampere Altra Server Type module, the basis of the Ampere Altra Development Platform (AADP), delivers an ideal performance-power ratio. For example, while running 80 Ampere Altra cores at 2.6GHz, the typical usage power is below 115W. It provides three PCIe Gen4 x16 lanes with a homogeneous architecture and computing power that is designed to effectively eliminates bottlenecks and restrictions typically caused by memory caches and system memory limits.
The PCIe interfaces in this platform support qualified inline accelerator cards which can be plugged in to perform compute intense and low latency functions mostly popular with 5G and telco applications. Ampere Altra is a high-performance, scalable, cloud-native processor with suitable power efficiency which unlocks new opportunities for developers from the edge, embedded, and other performance- and power-optimized applications.
Per the company, ADLINK’s COM HPC based Ampere Altra Developer Platform (AADP) is the only Arm64 workstation on the market today with Arm SystemReady SR certification. Arm SystemReady is a compliance certification program based on a set of hardware and firmware standards: Base System Architecture (BSA) and Base Boot Requirements (BBR) specifications. The certification should give developers confidence that most standard Linux distributions can be installed out-of-the-box, as you would expect from a consumer-based workstation. This is designed to ensure that subsequent layers of software also ‘just work.’ SystemReady SR certification includes verification testing of Ubuntu Server 20.04.3, Windows PE (10.0.22000.1), VMware ESXi-Arm Fling v1.8, Fedora Server 35, FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE, CentOS stream 9, and Debian 11.2.
On top of comprehensive OS support and installation, SystemReady SR certification also means that the software available to x86 and the Arm64 ecosystem can now also be applied to Arm64 workstations with little to no modifications.
COM HPC Ampere Altra Developer Platform key features:
- Ampere® Altra® SoC
- Arm Neoverse N1-based platform
- Scalable, from 32 to 80 Ampere Altra cores (65W to 150W TDP)
- Up to 768 GB DDR4 with 6 individual memory channels for demanding workloads
- 3 x16 slots and 4 x4 slots PCIe Gen4
- Open Source Firmware (EDKII bootloader with TianoCore / UEFI)
- Arm SystemReady SR certified
- Gigabit Ethernet support: 4x 10GbE and 1x GbE (optional)
- Ubuntu certified for 20.04, SOAFEE-compliant
The Ampere Altra Developer Platform, based on the COM-HPC Ampere Altra Server Type module, can now be ordered online at ADLINK’s I-Pi theme and support site. The I-Pi site offers development platforms and kits with online ordering and worldwide shipping options. Additionally, it provides readily-accessible technical support pages and forums, with links to all software hosted on GitHub.
For more information, visit: www.adlinktech.com
