Along with AMD, ARM, Huawei, IBM, Mellanox, and Qualcomm, various processor architectures and
New CCIX collaboration for seamless data sharing with accelerators

Xilinx announced that it is collaborating with AMD, ARM, Huawei, IBM, Mellanox, and Qualcomm Technologies, a subsidiary of Qualcomm, to introduce a high-performance open acceleration framework to data centers.

These companies are collaborating on the new CCIX (Cache Coherent Interconnect for Accelerators) specification for accelerators. Through a single interconnect technology specification, for the first time in the industry, processors using different instruction set architectures (ISAs) can share data uniformly using accelerators, enabling efficient heterogeneous computing and significantly improving the computational efficiency of servers executing data center workloads.

Application acceleration in data centers is essential due to power and space constraints. Applications such as big data analysis and search, machine learning, NFV, wireless 4G/5G, in-memory database processing, video analysis, and network processing rely on acceleration engines, which require seamless data movement between various system components.



CCIX enables these components to access and process data regardless of its location, without a complex programming environment. As both offloading and BITW (bump-in-the-wire) inline application acceleration become possible while leveraging the existing server ecosystem and form factor, software barriers are lowered and the total cost of ownership (TCO) of acceleration systems is improved.

Gerry Talbot, Senior Researcher at AMD and Vice President of I/O and Circuit Technology, stated, “AMD is strongly supporting the development of open standards to enable heterogeneous computing to become more widespread,” adding, “AMD is constantly striving for open heterogeneous computing by collaborating with other companies in the industry to develop new interconnect specifications to accelerate performance.”

Lakshmi Mandyam, Head of Server Systems and Ecosystems at ARM, explained, “For data center workloads, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ architecture does not deliver the necessary performance and efficiency,” adding, “Therefore, CCIX provides the high performance and value desired by data center customers by enabling optimal solutions through the deployment of applications that simplify software development and leverage the benefits of specialized processing and hardware offload.”

Brad McCredie, Senior Researcher at IBM and VP of POWER Development, stated, “IBM Power Systems™ has recently impacted openness as a catalyst for industrial innovation, creating cost and performance benefits for post-Moore's Law clients,” adding, “IBM is working with industry leaders to expand its efforts centered on open coherency to address clients' growing need for awarenessHe added, “It is contributing to satisfying [it].”

Gilad Shainer, Vice President of Marketing at Mellanox, stated, “CCIX enables higher performance and connectivity than existing interconnects and effectively paves the way for the next-generation CPU-accelerator-network standard interface,” adding, “With the support of the vast ecosystem expected to be supported by the CCIX standard, data centers will now be able to optimize data usage and achieve world-leading application efficiency and scale.”

"Qualcomm Technologies is enthusiastic about developing new technologies that enable efficient, high-performance architectures on open platforms that do not adhere to ISAs," said Vinay Ravuri, Vice President of Product Management at Qualcomm Technologies. "Future data centers require open architectures that allow for the selection of technologies such as computing, acceleration, and interconnects, and this is a significant step forward in achieving that goal."

Gaurav Singh, Vice President of Architecture at Xilinx, stated, “CCIX will leverage existing server interconnect infrastructure to provide higher bandwidth, lower latency, and cache coherent access to shared memory,” adding, “This will significantly improve the utilization of accelerators and the overall performance and efficiency of data center platforms.”

More detailed information about CCIX can be found at http://www.ccixconsortium.com.