Microchip PCIe® Switches Provide High-Performance Connectivity for Open Compute Project’s Accelerator Infrastructure
Switchtec™ PCIe switches enable the high-performance, low-latency fabric connectivity required to fulfill the industry’s vision for interoperable artificial intelligence hardware accelerators
CHANDLER, Ariz., October 3, 2019 – The rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning (DL) and High-Performance Computing (HPC) is driving demand to streamline the development of systems utilizing hardware accelerators that are optimized for the bandwidth needs and flexible interconnect requirements of these workloads. Microchip Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: MCHP) is helping to meet this industry need with Advanced Fabric PCIe switches that provide the interconnect technology for the OCP Open Accelerator Infrastructure (OAI).
Switchtec™ Gen4 PAX Advanced Fabric PCIe switches provide the HIB high-performance connectivity and other capabilities required to provide a common interface between Universal Baseboard (UBB) and hosts and other I/O devices to scale out. PAX switches are ideal for high fanout, scale-out, multi-host environments. The dynamic reconfiguration features provided by the robust, enterprise-grade PAX management firmware allow the HIB to support host-failover and live migration between the many OAI use cases as well as future use cases such as cross-domain peer-to-peer between accelerators and storage devices.
In last week’s Open Compute Regional Summit, the OCP Accelerator Module (OAM) form factor and its interconnects were announced. Microchip is a longtime participant in OCP and is supporting OCP members in the development of the OAM specification.
“Microchip’s Switchtec Advanced Fabric PCIe switches are ideally suited to help meet the fabric connectivity requirements for AI, ML, HPC and other workloads,” said Andrew Dieckmann, associate vice president of marketing for Microchip’s data center solutions (DCS) business unit. The OAM and HIB are critical pieces of the OAI specification, and we are excited to contribute to the advance of these specifications.”
Note: The Microchip name and logo, and the Microchip logo are registered trademarks of Microchip Technology Incorporated in the U.S.A. and other countries. Switchtec is a trademark of Microchip Technology Inc. in the U.S.A. and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective companies.
About Microchip
Microchip Technology Inc. is a leading provider of smart, connected and secure embedded control solutions. Its easy-to-use development tools and comprehensive product portfolio enable customers to create optimal designs which reduce risk while lowering total system cost and time to market. The company’s solutions serve more than 125,000 customers across the industrial, automotive, consumer, aerospace and defense, communications and computing markets. Headquartered in Chandler, Arizona, Microchip offers outstanding technical support along with dependable delivery and quality. For more information, visit the Microchip website at www.microchip.com.