Cavium Beefs Up ThunderX2 CPU

摘要

Even as servers using its ThunderX processor are starting to ramp in volume, Cavium disclosed plans for its second act. ThunderX2 will include a completely new ARMv8 CPU that's expected to increase IPC by a massive 60%. Combined with a clock-speed boost from the shift to 14nm FinFET manufacturing, the new microarchitecture will double the performance of the ThunderX CPU, according to the company. The current design has the lowest per-core performance among server processors, as Figure 1 shows, so Cavium needs these improvements to broaden the range of data-center applications it can address.