Recently, I saw a document released by OCP (Open Compute Project led by Facebook) regarding ARM servers. I have had little exposure to the ARM platform in my current work, so I took the opportunity to brush up on some knowledge and share it with everyone.
Several years ago, I mentioned that Wiwynn is an important supplier for Facebook’s server ODM, including the Junction City platform mentioned in my article “Preview of Next Generation Xeon Server: Ice Lake-SP General Cloud Platform Design” written in February this year, which is also from Wiwynn.
Click the image to enlarge (same for the following)
This ARM server supports 2 Ampere Altra / Altra Max CPUs. The same motherboard can be used for 1U and 2U chassis, with corresponding CPU TDP (Thermal Design Power) of 210W and 250W.
Memory support is 8-channel (2DPC) DDR4-3200 per CPU, with a total of 32 slots for dual CPUs, for a maximum capacity of 8TB. It is basically on par with Intel Icelake-SP (3rd Generation Xeon Scalable).
Including PCIe Gen4 slots, OCP 3.0 network cards, storage drive slots, etc., all mentioned with images in the following text. A key point on the previous page is the UEFI BIOS and BMC Firmware, which can use AMI AptioV and AMI MegaRAC, of course, with a license purchase; Ampere also provides OpenBMC FW and firmware from the open-source community, Tianocore/EDK-II UEFI (a page at the end lists the GitHub link). OpenBMC is suitable for capable individuals who can define a unified management and monitoring platform API interface for different (vendor) motherboards.
Mt. Jade is the code name for this ARM server (motherboard), and the 1U and 2U models aim to reuse the mature designs of the x86 platform as much as possible aside from the CPU and motherboard.
Image from Ampere® Altra Max™ Datasheet, detailed documents can be downloaded from the official website.
Above is the structural diagram of the Ampere Altra Max CPU—containing up to 128 Arm v8.2 cores (the Altra series has a maximum of 80 cores); each CPU can provide up to 128 PCIe Gen4 lanes in addition to the 8-channel memory controller, with 4 groups (half) re-definable as CCIX interconnect. Doesn’t it resemble AMD EPYC?
Overview of Mt. Jade motherboard
2 Ampere Altra / Altra Max CPUs use LGA4926 sockets, with pin counts exceeding the current Xeon and EPYC. The text on the right side of the above image erroneously states 32 channels of memory. On the Mt. Jade motherboard, each CPU leads out 96 lanes of PCIe Gen4; the interconnect between dual CPUs consists of 2 (x16) 25Gbps CCIX links, resulting in a total interconnect bandwidth of 100GB/s full duplex.
Further reading: “CXL, GenZ, CCIX Architectures and Future PM, Memory, and SSD Form Factors“
Regarding the above image, I would like to add a few explanations:
1. Fan Connector has up to 14 interfaces, likely to adapt to different chassis;
2. Silver Connector are all PCIe lanes, as noted in the previous motherboard structure diagram;
3. The PCIe slots I marked with a red box are used for Riser adapter cards, although some Riser cards also require connections to Silver Connector cables.
1U chassis is a relatively traditional model with 8 4056 fan modules and 12 slots for 2.5-inch U.2 NVMe SSDs.
Continuing the previous discussion, the Riser #4 PCIe Riser card for the Mt. Jade 1U model requires 2 MCIO x8 cables to connect to the motherboard’s Silver Connector.
2U model has 6 6056 fan rows. The front drive bay and hot-swappable backplane can be configured with 12 3.5-inch and 24 2.5-inch (SAS/SATA or NVMe) drives, and there is space for 2 additional 2.5-inch SSDs above the power supply at the back of the chassis.
The PCIe Riser #3 adapter card for the Mt. Jade 2U model has its lower gold fingers connected to the motherboard to obtain x8 PCIe Gen4 lanes; the other x16 slot must also connect to the Silver Connector.
These links are for Ampere Mt. Jade’s open-source contributions of OpenBMC and Tiancore (Github) / EDK2 UEFI firmware.
Let’s keep it simple for today, and I will chat about some off-topic things:) Ampere ARM CPU servers are not likely to be constrained in manufacturing like Kunpeng and Feiteng, while also not enjoying the dividends of XC. I have heard some friends say that if NVIDIA’s acquisition of ARM ultimately gets stuck in China (assuming the UK allows it), ARM may exit the Chinese market? If that day comes, domestic companies would not be able to purchase new architecture licenses from ARM, and I wonder how it would affect Ampere’s business.
From this perspective, I really hope NVIDIA does not successfully acquire ARM. I don’t like seeing non-technical factors influencing the market, but sometimes these are not up to technical people to decide.
References
“Ampere®️Altra®️ & Altra®️ Max Mt. Jade Aarch64 2-Socket Overview”
Link: https://pan.baidu.com/s/1domMS5DpcyjqKwW57wji8g
Extraction code: tdxz
https://amperecomputing.com/altra/
“Arm Server Trends: Ampere’s New Milestone and AWS Graviton3 Speculation” by Dr. Winnie Shao
Further reading: “Enterprise Storage Technology” article classification index (WeChat public account album)”
Note:This article represents the author’s personal views and is not related to any organization. If there are errors or deficiencies, please feel free to criticize and correct them in the comments. For further communication, you can add WeChat: 490834312.If you would like to share your technical content on this public account, please feel free to contact me:)
Respect knowledge, please retain the full text when reprinting, and include this line and the following QR code. Thank you for reading and supporting!
Long press the QR code to directly recognize and follow!History article summary:
:http://www.toutiao.com/c/user/5821930387/
http://www.zhihu.com/column/huangliang
↓↓↓