64-bit ARM server boards such as Applied Micro XC-1 Mustang and AMD Opteron A1100 development kit have been available since the beginning of the year, but only to selected companies, and at a price of several thousand dollars per board. Applied Micro is now offering their X-Gene based XC-1 development board to individual developers for $895, or about ~40% discount to the $1495 company now have to pay for the board. It may also be available from distributors (part number: EV-883208-X1-PRB-1).
XC-1 board (codenamed Mustang) technical specifications:
- SoC – Applied Micro X-GeneAPM883208-X1 8-core ARM 64-bit @ 1.6 GHz
- System Memory – 2x DDR3 UDIMM memory slots up fitted with 2x 4GB sticks (8 GB), upgradable to 16GB
- Storage – 1x 128Mbit SPI NOR Flash for booting, 1x SATA 3 ports, SD card slot, 1024Kb and 256Kb I2C EEPROM
- Connectivity – 2x Gigagit port (SGMII), 10 GbE SFP+ cage, 1x Gigabit management Ethernet port (RGMII). Note: the product brief only mentions 1x Gigabit Ethernet port, 1x Management port, but the Getting Started Guide and the picture above clearly shows all 4 Ethernet ports.
- USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 1x mini USB port (for JTAG)
- Expansion – 1x PCIe x8 connector, expansion connector(s) for GPIOs
- Debugging – JTAG (mini USB to JUAG) and trace connectors
- Monitoring – DB9 Serial port
- Misc – RTC, temperature monitor, BMC connector (I’m not sure what it is, and its purpose)
- Power Supply – mini-ATX
- Dimensions – 170 x 170 mm (mini-ITX form factor)
The kit includes X-Gene X-C1 board, a mini ITX Power Supply, a serial/USB FDTI cable, and documentation. I understand you can connect a SATA multiplier to get up to four 6TB hard drives connected to the board.
You’ll also be able to access Linux code (source and binary), U-Boot firmware (source and binary), Linux development tools, sample application code, and schematics and layout files for X-C1 board. UEFI Tianocore bootloader, as well as Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, RedHat, Fedora, OpenSUSE are also available. Download links are apparently provided in the documentation that comes with the board, or you may be able to access these after registration at https://myapm.apm.com/.
This server board is not only capable of running Linux server distributions, and you can insert a PCIe graphics card (e.g. Nvidia GeForce 7600) in to the board, and Android 4.4 Kitkat developed by Linaro, as shown on a video by Charbax, which also includes an overview of the board, and an unboxing of the kit.
Via ARMDevices.net
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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