Calxeda (previously known as Smooth-Stone) was a company that aimed to provide computers based on the

ARM architecture ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configure ...

for server computers. It operated from 2008 through 2013. In March 2011 Calxeda announced a 480-core server in development, consisting of 120 quad-core ARM

Cortex-A9 The ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore is a 32-bit multi-core processor that provides up to 4 cache-coherent cores, each implementing the ARM v7 architecture instruction set. It was introduced in 2007. Features Key features of the Cortex-A9 core are: * ...

CPUs. Calxeda claimed reduced energy consumption as well as better cost per throughput, compared to x86-based server manufacturers. They competed in the many-core server market against

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...

and AMD, other recent ARM-based server vendors such as

Marvell Technology Group Marvell Technology, Inc. is an American company, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, which develops and produces semiconductors and related technology. Founded in 1995, the company had more than 6,000 employees as of 2021, with over 10,00 ...

(the Armada XP product), and the

multi-core processor A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (suc ...

manufacturer Tilera. In November 2011 Calxeda announced the EnergyCore ECX-1000, featuring four

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calcula ...

ARMv7 Cortex-A9 CPU cores operating at 1.1–1.4 GHz, 32 KB L1 I-cache and 32 KB L1 D-cache per core, 4 MB shared L2 cache, 1.5 W per processor, 5 W per server node including 4 GB of DDR3 DRAM, 0.5 W when idle. Each chip included five

10 Gigabit Ethernet 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE, 10GbE, or 10 GigE) is a group of computer networking technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of 10 gigabits per second. It was first defined by the IEEE 802.3ae-2002 standard. Unlike previous Et ...

ports. Four chips are carried on each EnergyCard. The UK-headquartered company Boston Limited announced in 2011 appliances based on the Calxeda EnergyCore

system on a chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memor ...

products. Boston's appliances, marketed under the Viridis brand, were demonstrated in November 2012. Hewlett-Packard used Calxeda products for a server product known as ''Moonshot'' in November 2011, named after the Redstone rocket. On December 19, 2013, Calxeda was reported to be restructuring, widely referred to as shutting down its operation due to running out of the capital venture funding, after failing to secure the deal with Hewlett-Packard. In December 2014 the intellectual property developed by Calxeda re-emerged with a company called Silver Lining Systems (SLS).

References

External links

Calxeda web site
(last copy archived by

WayBack Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and s ...

)
Silver Lining Systems (SLS)
the new company that is leveraging the intellectual property developed by Calxeda {{US-manufacturing-company-stub 2008 establishments in Texas 2013 disestablishments in Texas ARM architecture Computer companies established in 2008 Computer companies established in 2013 Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Electronics companies disestablished in 2013 Electronics companies established in 2008 Manufacturing companies based in Austin, Texas Manycore processors