It has been a few months since our last ARM Server update, and as usual, a lot has changed in just a short time!
The biggest and most important news is the launch of the Raspberry Pi 3, freshly upgraded to a quad-core 64-bit ARM processor from Broadcom, whereas all previous Raspberry Pi’s have been based on 32-bit processors. With 8 million units sold, the Raspberry Pi is by far the most popular ARM single board computer, so the move to a 64-bit processor will potentially add millions of units to the 64-bit ARM ecosystem.
In January, the AMD Opteron A1100 officially launched, which is also a 64-bit model. It is available in 3 different SKU’s with varying core count and speeds, and AMD is arguably the biggest name to launch an ARM Server SOC thus far.
The LeMaker Cello is a new board based on the 96Boards Enterprise Edition specification, utilizing one of the AMD Opteron processors. It has gigabit ethernet, DDR3 memory, SATA, and USB 3.0, so connectivity and data throughput should be excellent.
Finally, as part of the latest 96Boards Reference Software Platform, both Debian and CentOS are now supported for install, and a single 4.4 Kernel run the DragonBoard, HiKey, and HuskyBoard.
So there you have it. Just a few short months, and lots of change has happened in the ARM Server ecosystem (as usual)!