CPU Technology

CPU Technology


Acalis CPU872

Targets: Communication & Wired, Computers & Peripherals, General Purpose, Imaging & Video, Industrial, Medical, Military & Aerospace, Mobile & Wireless, Test & Measurement

CPU Technology Acalis CPU872 Block Diagram

The Acalis CPU872 System-on-Chip contains two complete computing nodes on a chip and security functions that protect IP (intellectual property) without impacting performance. It contains dual high performance PowerPC 440 and FPU cores, dual embedded DRAMs, dual streaming processors, dual MPI processors, dual DDR3 memory controllers for interfacing to external DRAM, five 10 Gbps Express interfaces, and an integrated mesh router. These features make it suitable for critical high-performance and embedded applications.

Utility processors increase the efficiency of communications and interfaces with other processors, memory, and I/O. The CPU872 includes a MPI communication processor and streaming processor with each computer node. These specialty engines off-load external functions from the PowerPC 440 to maximize the node's sustained performance. The CPU872 has a system-level power of 8 Watts since the chip also includes the DRAM, router, I/O controllers, memory controllers, and other functions that make up a compute node in addition to the processors.

The CPU872 device was designed for multi-core processing. The CPU872 contains five high-speed interfaces to connect other Acalis chips. The arrays can readily scale to a 3-D mesh incorporating thousands of processors. Any processor can access the memory of any other processor with a minimal amount of latency. Furthermore, the CPU872 utilizes CPU Tech's patented processor synchronization technology.

In addition to supporting homogeneous multi-core processing, the CPU872 also provides high-speed interfaces to connect to other types of processors or FPGAs. These interfaces can be used to simply add a co-processor or to support a heterogeneous multi-core computing environment.

SystemLab Sentry and the real-time simulation capability of SystemLab PS facilitate hardware and software development. Any tool that supports the PowerPC 440 can be used with the CPU872. Members of the Acalis family are available for a minimum of 10 years. The entire Acalis CPU8xx family is software compatible.