NEC pops PA Semi chips into storage gear

It's a low power thing

By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View • Get more from this author

Posted in Storage, 14th January 2008 20:25 GMT

Free whitepaper – Standardization and Modularity in Network-Critical Physical Infrastructure

Chip start-up PA Semi has taken another semi-prominent scalp by revealing that NEC's storage division will use its processors.

The NEC Systems Storage Division win is a performance per watt story. NEC reckons that the 1682M processor showed the top application performance in tests while chewing through very little power. As a result, NEC thinks it can craft some top-notch storage controllers.

What types of storage gear with the PA Semi chip go into? Who did PA Semi knock out of NEC's kit?

Well, neither company wants to talk about those matters. All we know is that the 1682M processor will appear in "storage array products."

PA Semi has long pitched its chips as storage industry friendly. The company's current Power architecture-based dual-core products eats up between 5W and 13W while running at 2.0GHz. So, it's easy enough to see why a storage vendor would want such a green, sorry, part.

Last June, Mercury Systems announced that it would pick up PA Semi's products for its PowerStream servers. But we're still just seeing this evaluation board and no production systems. ®

Free whitepaper – Fundamental Principles of Generators for Information Technology