Intel Corp. is working on yet another system-on-chip product based on Atom micro-architecture. The code-named Briarwood SoC is designed specifically for storage building block (SBB) as well as storage area network (SAN) storage products and will hit the market in Q1 2013, according to a media report.

Intel Atom “Briarwood” system-on-chips will be powered by two Saltwell x86 cores with Hyper-Threading and virtualization support as well as single-channel DDR3 memory controller with ECC support. In a bit to provide the right feature-set for SBB and SAN markets, Intel will add DDR scrambler and memory scrubbing features to memory controller as well as integrate quad-channel Crystal Beach DMA engine, which will support RAID 5, 6 and DIF, reports CPU World web-site. Integrated peripherals will include UART, SPI and SMBus controllers, legacy I/O components, and 32 or 40 lanes of PCI Express 2.0.

Intel will offer three versions of Atom “Briarwood” SoCs with different performance, thermal design power and price:
 

• Atom S1269 - dual-core with Hyper-Threading, 1.60GHz maximum clock-speed, 1MB L2 cache, 32 PCI Express 2.0 lanes, 11.7W thermal design power;
• Atom S1279 - dual-core with Hyper-Threading, 1.60GHz maximum clock-speed, 1MB L2 cache, 40 PCI Express 2.0 lanes, 13.1W thermal design power;
• Atom S1289 - dual-core with Hyper-Threading, 2.0GHz maximum clock-speed, 1MB L2 cache, 40 PCI Express 2.0 lanes, 14.1W thermal design power.

It should be noted that Briarwood will have many similarities with code-named Centerton chip for servers, in addition, both will belong to Atom S1200-series chips, which probably points to Atom server-class offerings.

The new Atom products for SBB and SAN markets have all chances to become popular thanks to their low power consumption and compatibility with software written for x86 micro-architecture. Intel will probably reveal reference design for products as well as a special platform for storage SBB and SAN devices.

Intel did not comment on the news-story.

Tags: Intel, Briarwood, Centerton, Atom, x86