Freescale Introduces 64-Bit Multi-Core Chips for Control Plane Apps.

Freescale Semiconductor this week introduced two 64-bit QorIQ P5 family control plane processors. The quad-core QorIQ P5040 and dual-core P5021 products operate at 2.40GHz and feature a mix of accelerators, high-speed interfaces and security features, resulting in advanced embedded solutions ideally suited for power-conscious control plane applications.
Built on Freescale’s 64-bit Power architecture e5500 core, all QorIQ P5 family products are pin- and software- compatible. Software reuse is further enhanced with hybrid 32-bit mode capabilities, which support legacy software and help ensure a seamless transition to 64-bit computing. The family now includes single-core, dual-core and quad-core chips operating at 2.0GHz or 2.40GHz with power consumption from sub-15W.
Integration of application-specific accelerators and advanced I/O on a single embedded device means customers of both new products benefit from reduced system development cycles and thermal management costs. Processing efficiency is optimized in part via CoreNet on-chip fabric that is designed to feed accelerators and cores while eliminating bus contention. A RAID 5/6 engine offloads the processors’ cores from parity calculations for storage applications. The devices integrate high-speed connectivity support for PCIe, SGMII, XAUI, SATA, Aurora and multiple 1GigE and 10GigE. Double precision floating point support is included to address key industrial market requirements.

“Freescale continues to expand its broad range of highly successful QorIQ multicore processors with the new P5040 and P5021 devices. These products are engineered to help our customers maintain best-in-class power efficiency while handling the tremendous control plane processing demands associated with the rapid global growth of wired and wireless data,” said Bernd Lienhard, vice president and general manager of Freescale’s networking processor division.
The newQorIQ P products are designed for industrial, storage, military/aerospace and networking applications including core routers and data centers. They feature advanced security capabilities including secure boot of application code, tamper detect circuitry and secure debug, as well as hardware-assisted acceleration of cryptography protocols. Key to establishing highly secure systems, Freescale’s embedded trust architecture prevents cloning and unauthorized cores from running on a system.
Freescale plans to offer initial samples and a P5040 development board in June 2012, with full qualification for both products expected in the first quarter of 2013.