Broadcom Samples First ARMv8 Chip

摘要

Broadcom is sampling its first announced 64-bit ARM chip, but it's not the much-anticipated Vulcan server processor. It's the BCM4908, an embedded processor for home Wi-Fi routers and enterprise access points. It integrates four Cortex-A53 CPUs and is designed for 802.1 lac Wave 2 routers that will implement such advanced features as 4×4 MIMO, multiuser MIMO (MU-MIMO), and high-bandwidth 160MHz channels. To handle the additional processing those features require, the BCM4908 is much more powerful than the company's existing BCM4708- and BCM4709-series chips. Those products generally have dual 32-bit Cortex-A9 CPUs operating at 800MHz to 1.4GHz, 256KB L2 caches, five switched GbE ports, and 16-bit DRAM interfaces, and they are manufactured in 40nm polysilicon technology. By contrast, the new offering has four 64-bit cores operating at 1.8GHz, 1MB of L2 cache, seven switched Ethernet ports (including one 2.5GbE), and a 32-bit DRAM interface, and it's manufactured in 28nm high-k metal-gate (HKMG) technology.