AMD mulls custom ARM 64-bit server chips

He provided the example of possibly customizing I/O and ports for specific customers.

AMD also shared the technical details of its first 64-bit ARM processor called Opteron A1100, code-named Seattle, at Hot Chips. The company has already started shipping the chips to server makers for testing. The first Seattle servers are expected to ship by the end of this year or early next year. One of the first servers with the new chip could be AMD's own SeaMicro server.

The company also makes x86 server chips, but is placing a big bet on ARM chips. Some of AMD's ARM server competitors include AppliedMicro, and it will continue to contend with Intel on x86 servers, which dominates data centers. Intel is already making custom processors based on its Xeon chips for large data center customers like eBay.

AMD last year also started putting more emphasis on the custom chip business after the PC market declined. The company is already recording strong custom chip revenue thanks to the game consoles, which are shipping in the millions.

The Seattle server chip has two DDR3 and DDR4 memory channels, which is half that of the typical four memory channels in its x86 server chips. The ARM chip will have up to 4MB L2 cache, with two cores sharing 1MB. A total of 8MB of L3 cache is accessible to all eight cores.