OVERVIEW
Huawei always surprises with its innovative product launches. In January 2019, they entered the high-performance ARM-based CPU market and came up with an exciting new ARM (Advanced RISC Machine)-based chipset, taking computing performance to new heights.
Kunpeng 920, the new chipset, is designed to go into data centers and will power their TaiShan servers as well.
Huawei’s Upcoming 24-Core Kunpeng CPU - faster than Intel Core i9-9900K
William Xu, Huawei’s Chief Strategy Marketing Officer and Director of the board presents the new Kunpeng 920 chip
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/07/huawei-launches-kunpeng-920-chipset-for-servers-.html
KEY TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
High performance, high bandwidth, high integration and high efficiency are the four major characteristics of it.
The new Kunpeng 920 chip
Source: https://c8.alamy.com/comp/WRBPA2/a-huawei-oceanstor-dorado-server-powered-by-huaweis-7nm-kunpeng-920-cpus-is-on-display-during-the-2nd-flash-memory-world-fmw-2019-in-hangzhou-city-WRBPA2.jpg
The Kunpeng 920 series chip was initially designed for servers, boasting:
an octa-channel DDR4-2933 memory two 100GbE controllers;
40 PCIe 4.0 lanes with CCIX support, 16 SAS 3.0 ports;
two SATA 3.0 ports, and four USB 3.0 connectors.
WHERE DOES KUNPENG SERVE?
In companies with private clouds needing high scalability.
Container-based applications.
All cloud services for Huawei smartphones are, therefore, Kunpeng-based.
These are also very suitable for AI, Big Data, HPC, cloud mobile phone/cloud gaming and other scenarios.
EXCEPTIONAL FEATURES
Smaller size chip
As the newest technology in the semiconductor industry, this smaller size (a 7-nanometer chip) can result in more powerful and energy-efficient chips than their predecessors.
Is 7 nm better?
25% increase in performance with the same power.
The same performance can be achieved with half of the power.
Longer battery life.
Much more powerful chips for smaller devices.
BENEFITS OF USING ARM-BASED CHIPS
With the increasing demand for computing power comes the need to also increase energy efficiency. In this regard, Huawei, like many others, consider ARM to have the advantage in balancing those two opposed goals.
ARM-based CPUs are better in areas like cloud and servers. Some key features are as follows:
energy-efficient - Kunpeng is 30 percent more energy-efficient;
lower power cost - power costs are lower, as you can store more Kunpeng-based servers in one rack;
cost-effective - for Huawei, ARM chips save more money compared to Intel chips;
lower energy consumption - the ARM chips of Kunpeng have lower energy consumption and dissipation, which makes the green computing goals more achievable.
WHY WILL Kunpeng BE A NEXT-GENERATION CHIPSET FOR NETWORKING & CLOUD PROVIDERS?
1. The system on the chip - the Kunpeng is a fully-developed chip and not just a processor. It is a system-on-a-chip (SoC) and not a CPU only.
2. Self-optimizations - it has a separate module that is optimized for encryption, which means that the processor can be used for other tasks. It includes self-optimizations for the fast execution of processes over multiple cores. The encryption process is also 45 percent faster than with Intel chips.
3. Web traffic encryption and minimal latency for networking - the encryption of web traffic and the storage and retrieval of data through distributed storage. The network module is integrated into the chip, so latency is minimized. Relieves the CPU and uses a specific module in the chip which is fully equipped for this purpose, making it faster and more efficient.
4. Stand out on workloads and efficiency - MySQL performance is improved by 35 percent on a Kunpeng-chip because of these optimization in computing, storage, transmission, management and intelligence.
Some tasks are performed more efficiently. These specializations ensure that the chip excels above a normal processor in several areas:
encryption
network
storage
CONCLUSIONS
Kunpeng seems very interesting and competitive with the ARM chip, being a system-on-a-chip (SoC) with four major characteristics of high performance, high bandwidth, high integration and high efficiency. Hope it will do great in the market in the coming days.
Wish all the very best for the future ventures of Huawei including Kunpeng!
'We hope to make our cloud service, together with our partners, one of the top five cloud services in the world!', Xu said.
The current top cloud players are Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Google and Alibaba, according to the market insight firm Synergy Research. We hope the latest addition to its portfolio will ultimately make it one of the top cloud players on the planet.
REFERENCES
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/313641-huaweis-upcoming-24-core-kunpeng-cpu-faster-than-intel-core-i9-9900k;
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/07/huawei-launches-kunpeng-920-chipset-for-servers-.html.
thanks for sharing
