At Interop 2009, RMI Corp. has unveiled what is said to be the industry’s highest performing Multi-core Processor family driving unmatched system and performance scalability. The superscalar XLP Processor utilizes a MIPS64 compatible superscalar, simultaneously multi-threaded processor core with out-of-order processing capabilities. The newly designed core operates at greater than 2GHz and provides embedded system designers their first opportunity to employ an SoC with an integrated best-in-class processor core architecture, optimized for both data plane and control plane processing. RMI’s XLP Processor family is developed on a 40nm process technology.
“The XLP Processor is a significant milestone for RMI on the way to becoming the leading communication processor company in the industry. The overwhelming support of our partners in this endeavor is recognition of our leadership architecture,” said Behrooz Abdi, President and Chief Executive Officer, RMI. “The combination of our high performance architecture and advanced 40nm technology will put us significantly ahead of the competition and allow our customers to further differentiate themselves in their market segments.”
The XLP Processor contains the EC4400 Processor Core, which is architected to provide the highest performance for both data plane and control plane performance. Each EC4400 Core maintains the multi-threading capability that is field proven to provide the highest possible performance for throughput oriented data plane processing. In order to demonstrate similar leadership in single context control plane processing, RMI designed the EC4400 Core as a superscalar engine with out-of-order execution capabilities. This combination of quad-issue and simultaneous four-way multi-threading within each core enables new classes of systems with non-compromised combined data plane and control plane performance with a single chip solution.
Each of the four hardware threads (VirtuCores) embedded in the EC4400 Core appears to software as a completely separate processing element, enabling extremely flexible software architectures that simultaneously simplify the software development while increasing the overall system performance. RMI’s innovative hardware multi-threading capabilities are proven to deliver unparalleled performance in data plane applications that are inherently sensitive to memory latencies. The EC4400 Core is MIPS64 Release-II ISA-compliant and contains an IEEE754 and MIPS-compliant floating point unit per core. Through the combination of architectural improvement and frequency enhancement, the EC4400 offers a 3x performance per watt improvement over RMI’s industry leading current generation product offering and was designed based on inputs from leading systems providers.
The RMI XLP832 Processor is a highly-scalable Super System-on-Chip (SuperSoC) device incorporating key functions of a high-end communication system, including wired and wireless security, networking, storage, data center acceleration, load balancing, as well as a host of other acceleration engines enabling application in a large variety of market segments. The XLP Processor family is a third-generation architectural enhancement to RMI's Multi-core XLR Processor family. The XLP832 offers processor core frequencies from 500MHz to greater than 2GHz, providing a 3x performance/watt improvement over its XLR predecessor. The XLP832 is software backward-compatible with the XLR and XLS Processor families, and contains a wide array of networking interfaces (Interlaken, XAUI, SGMII) and system interfaces (including of PCI Express 2.0, an LA-1 Interlaken for TCAM, and two USB 2.0 host/client ports.
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