Intel® Embedded and Communications Alliance Members
Speak Out on Performance per Watt
Kontron
We designed our Compact PCI CP6014 blade for markets concerned about power dissipation.
Our new blade is designed for telecommunications, but we see a lot of customers
for medical imaging as well. The Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor L5400
series with the Intel® 5100 MCH chipset provides tremendous performance with
very low power. It is the only dual processor quad-core solution that can meet the
power requirements for this blade.
The new blade replaces a dual-processor, single-core design. Now you can have eight
cores on the same side of the board, which brings all kinds of new opportunities
to the market that the previous technology could not address. It also expands the
life of our product, enabling us to resell a high performance refresh of our product
that runs in the existing power envelope.
Many of our customers are using a rack with the PICMG 2.16 specification (CompactPCI
Packet Switching Backplane) which is basically talking to the backplane via dual
gigabit. We have customers using 10 cards in a system, operating as a supercomputer.
Now with four times more CPUs per core, you can reduce the number of CPUs in the
system by four. Instead of having to use 10 cards, you can use just two cards and
have about the same performance that requires less power and puts out less heat.
Or, you can put in the same number of cards and have a much more powerful system
that lets you do many times more tasks, adding new capabilities that in the past
could not be addressed because the CPU was at the max in terms of processing.
Having eight cores and being able to use virtualization is another big advantage.
For instance, you can have one core running a proprietary OS for a legacy application
and another core running Linux. The greatest advantage is being able to run multiple
applications using virtualization on the same card with the same power that was
required before to run just one of the applications on its own dedicated blade.
Before you had multiple tasks spread over multiple systems. Now one blade can do
it all.
Benoit Robert
Product Manager
Kontron
Radisys
This is the processor of choice for medical imaging. This is what all our new designs
are being based on. This platform delivers the highest processing performance currently
available in a long-life processor. And our customers want top-of-line performance.
In the medical field, we’re specifically targeting medical imaging processing –
computed tomography (CT) scanners, magnetic resonance (MR) scanners, and high-end
x-ray systems. It’s a huge task to take all the CT or MR 2D images and turn them
into a 3D image. When you are working with a patient, you want this image as fast
as possible so you can be sure you get the shot you need and can move on to the
next patient.
Our customers are going to realize greater image enhancement. High resolution is
like high definition TV, the more pixels you have, the more definition you get,
the easier it is for the medical professional to make an accurate diagnosis. More
pixels per image demand more processing power. Customers will be able to do higher
resolution images and get the data faster. They will also be able to get greater
performance with fewer boxes, so they can save money in terms of the overall system
cost.
With tight constraints on both size and noise, the only way you are going to deliver
greater processing is by increasing the performance per watt. This platform allows
us to deliver increased performance while maintaining the same physical footprint
of our servers and same thermal and acoustic properties. Our customers want as much
processing power as they can get, but this is constrained by physical size, heat
and acoustic restrictions.
Both we and our customers are also interested in being as green as possible. And
that is another area where the power savings are important. We want to minimize
our impact on global warming, because there are a lot of these machines in the world.
Michael Reunert
Senior Marketing Manager
Radisys
Advantech
Our customers are looking for the best cost-saving platform they can get. If you
compare this with other platforms, this performance per watt gives them the best
value. Performance per watt matters because the embedded market focuses on power
consumption. Our customers want the lowest power consumption, with the lowest heat
they can get in a board that delivers the performance they need.
This new board will replace our dual-core board solution in military, security and
medical applications. This platform has less power consumption and less heat than
our previous quad-core board, and we can easily insert into our current chassis.
With less heat, lower power requirements and better performance per watt, it can
run in higher temperature environments, such as applications where we need to go
above 40 degrees C.
In medical applications, real-time imaging is very important—which means getting
the image, such as x-ray or ultrasound, as it is being produced. Medical applications
also have very stringent requirements on sound. The fact that this platform does
not produce much heat means less cooling, allowing us to reduce fan speed and noise.
There will also be cost advantages because customers will not need powerful air
cooling. It will be easier to design a system around this platform.
We will see a similar advantage in security applications, where the key advantage
will be real-time coding and decoding of images from security cameras.
In military applications, this platform will enable better flight simulation, which
uses a lot of computing power. The platform’s low power requirements will mean it
will be easier to design simulation solutions for use in the field.
Philip Sung
Advantech
GE Fanuc
The new 45nm Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor L5408, coupled with the new
low-power Intel® 5100 Memory Controller Hub (MCH) is the latest and fastest
Intel technology available.
We have limited ability to remove heat from the system, and the thermal envelope
of this new platform allows us to move into server-class performance, while offering
an embedded product lifecycle from Intel. Our customers are very enthusiastic –
and so are we.
Anthony O'Sullivan
GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms
Director Marketing, EMEA
Embedded Systems
Portwell
With the new 45nm Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor L5408, coupled with the
new low-power Intel® 5100 Memory Controller Hub (MCH), Portwell's PICMG 1.3
SBC can offer greater computing capability with dual quad-core Intel Xeon processors,
high bandwidth for networking and energy savings.
Our new product is the ROBO-8921VG2A, a PICMG 1.3 SBC with dual Intel Xeon processors
with video, dual gigabit LAN ports and USB. We expect our customers to use it in
new projects that need a great deal of computing power, such as medical imaging
and flight simulation servers. We are excited about the new business it will generate
for compute-intensive applications. The increased performance per watt of the platform
provides an excellent solution for cost-savings.
Frank Shen
Product Marketing Director
American Portwell Technology