AMD mulls custom ARM 64-bit server chips

New to ARM processors is ECC memory, which is important in servers to correct data errors. The 32-bit ARM processors did not have ECC memory, which is a common in x86 server chips.

Each Seattle CPU will support up to 128GB of memory, totaling up to 1TB for the eight CPU cores on Opteron-A1100. The 32-bit ARM chips supported only up to 4GB of memory.

Other features on the chip include engines to encrypt and decrypt data and to compress and decompress data. A TrustZone security engine establishes trusted execution zones to safely execute code without hurting system integrity.

Seattle supports a "Swiss army knife" of common interfaces such as 10-gigabit Ethernet, PCI-Express and SATA storage, White said.

AMD has already started shipping a reference board with the Seattle processor to select customers that want to write and test applications.