ARM backers jump on Facebook's server bandwagon

Rick Merritt, EETimes
1/16/2013 1:00 PM EST

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – The Facebook-led Open Compute Project (OCP) announced a specification for a plug-in board that can accommodate a variety of ARM- and x86-based server SoCs. Applied Micro Circuits Corp. and Calxeda are among SoC vendors contributing board-level designs that meet the spec and use their ARM SoCs.

With the news, Facebook becomes the first major data center to open the door to ARM SoCs in servers. An executive for the social networking giant told EE Times late last year that Facebook might find some low volume roles for 32-bit ARM SoCs, but that it sees no widespread use of the architecture in host server processors until 64-bit parts are available, probably in 2014 or beyond.

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