Tilera Raises $45m For Massively Parallel Cloud Server Processors

A key trend in current processor thinking is that cloud servers will require huge numbers of cores and very low power consumption, a combination that could open up a back door into the Intel x86 stronghold for new architectures. Marvell, Nvidia and start-up Calxeda are betting on extending the ARM platform but another start-up, Tilera of Silicon Valley, is taking the braver stance of designing its own massively parallel Risc processor from scratch.

Focal Points:

• Some big hitters think the risk is worthwhile, with Cisco and Samsung both joining a new round of funding for the firm, totaling $45m. This adds to a $25m round raised in March last year and total financing to date is now £109m. Other investors this time around are lead backer Artis Capital Management, plus WestSummit Capital Management and Comerica Bank, with new input from existing investors Walden International, Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital Broadcom, NTT Finance, VentureTech Alliance and Quanta Computer. The firm says it is near break-even and expects to hit profit later this year.
• Seven-year old Tilera is scathing about multicore strategies that top out at four or eight cores, and instead designs processors with up to 100 – and its new generation will double that figure by 2013. Its architecture enables cores to operate independently, which could support multiple operating systems, but more commonly will assign different groups of cores to different tasks. Quanta has already announced a server that uses many of the chips to total 10,000 cores.
• The 1.25GHz chips are less powerful than Intel‘s 3.3GHz Nehalem, but their power consumption is only 33-50 watts instead of the peak of 130 watts for the Intel powerhouse.

Given Intel‘s dominance of large servers, the real challenge for companies like Tilera will be to get into the mainstream before an alternative based on Intel‘s own low power platform, Atom, appears. Intel may be resisting that move because of the impact on margins, but it will undoubtedly react should it see its x86 heartland under serious threat from ARM or other designs.