In Depth: Can MIPS and ARM actually compete in the server market?

By Desire Athow

MWC 2015 is usually associated with mobility, tablets and smartphones. However, the event is also becoming more popular with semiconductor companies looking to discuss about their latest server-focused products as backend infrastructure and the data centre become part of the debate around mobile.

One of the big talking points has been over whether competitors to Intel can actually topple the Santa Clara semiconductor behemoth in the server market.

Now that the desktop market has been “sorted out” (AMD’s ain’t competition anymore) and mobile appears where Intel is focusing its attention, could there be a window of opportunity for them?

ARM and…. MIPS!

We first met with Cavium, an ARM and MIPS partner that unveiled a 48-core server chip, the ThunderX, last year and already has a design win with Lenovo.

Cavium was adamant that ARM will be able to compete with Intel and has positioned its ThunderX models against Intel’s Xeon E3-series and, according to its Milt Douglass, its VP of worldwide sales, are ahead of the ARM competition (AMD, AMCC, Calxeda) when it comes to performance/value.

Now, Cavium is also a MIPS licensee but Milt made it clear that ARM had a very clear advantage when it came to server implementation in the market …read more

Source: techradar.com – Computing Components