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Microsemi announces adaptec smart storage adapter support for Cavium ThunderX2 ARM-Based CPUs

Microsemi Corporation, a provider of semiconductor solutions differentiated by power, security, reliability and performance, announced interoperability between its 12 gigabits per second (Gbps) SAS/SATA host bus adapter (HBA), the Microsemi Adaptec HBA 1100, part of its new Smart Storage adapters portfolio, and Cavium, Inc.’s, ThunderX2™ ARM-based central processing unit (CPU). Data centre customers looking for a storage adapter solution for Cavium ThunderX2 deployments to support high performance SAS/SATA connectivity can now deploy the Microsemi Adapter HBA 1100 with confidence as a fully qualified end-to-end solution.

“Extensive interoperability testing between Cavium and Microsemi make our Adaptec HBA 1100 the ideal storage solution for Cavium ThunderX2 server deployments,” said Andrew Dieckmann, vice president of marketing for Microsemi. “ARM-based processors are increasingly being considered for next-generation server deployments in the data centre due to their performance and power profile advantages for specific data centre workloads; this collaboration with Cavium provides data centres with the confidence to make Microsemi their first call when looking to adopt Cavium ThunderX2-based servers.”

According to research firm IDC, the ARM-based server processor market will grow to 10% of all server processors shipped by 2021. The Microsemi Adaptec HBA 1100, which leverages the company’s unified Smart Storage Stack, is optimised for software-defined storage (SDS), cold storage and other raw high-performance connectivity applications for data centres, server original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and server original design manufacturers (ODMs) due to its high performance and flexibility.

It provides adapters in a range of port configurations, from 4 to 24 ports, and takes advantage of Microsemi’s latest 28 nm storage controller, the SmartIOC 2100, offering great flexibility and an optimal power profile for these target applications. It also offers support for host-managed and host-aware shingled magnetic recording (SMR) drives as well as broad operating system (OS) driver support, including inbox driver support.

“It is an exciting time in the server processor market, as application workloads continue to become more diverse and performance-intensive,” said Larry Wikelius, vice president Software Ecosystem and Solutions Group at Cavium. “Data centres are looking at the Cavium ThunderX2 to deliver the required performance for cloud and high-performance computing (HPC) deployments, and we are pleased to now offer Microsemi’s Adaptec HBA 1100 as part of our solution set when external connectivity or fan out to internal drives is required.”

Cavium collaborates with Microsemi as part of Microsemi’s Accelerate Ecosystem, which facilitates collaboration between Microsemi and leading firms in the semiconductor integrated circuit (IC), intellectual property (IP), systems, software, tools and design spaces to integrate, test and deliver pre-validated designs and system-level solutions for end customers in Microsemi’s key vertical markets—aerospace and defense, data centre, communications and industrial.

The Accelerate Ecosystem is designed to reduce time-to-market for end customers and time-to-revenue for Microsemi and ecosystem members via technology alignment, joint marketing and sales acceleration.

The Microsemi Adaptec Smart Storage adapters deliver high performance, low power, reliability and feature-rich solutions tailored to a variety of server storage applications. The combination of the company’s Unified Smart Storage Stack, SmartRAID and SmartHBA, HBA product families and Microsemi’s SXP family of SAS expanders provide a complete server solution for storage management and connectivity.

Product availability


Microsemi’s HBA 1100 series board-level product family is available in volume production quantities now. For more information, click here.

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