Xilinx launches “composable” SmartNIC for networking, security and storage

 

Xilinx on Tuesday announced a programmable network interface card (NIC) family to handle the evolving needs of data centers for networking, security and storage.

The new Xilinx Alveo SN1000 SmartNIC is comprised of a low latency FPGA and Arm processors along with Vitis Networking software that supports P4, C and C++ programming languages. The first SmartNIC in the family, the SN1002, will be generally available in March, but Xilinx did not announce pricing.

Data center managers will be able to dynamically refigure the NIC as needs change.  “Customers can decouple [components]...and throw in a custom virtual switch,” said Kartik Srinivasan, director of marketing for the Xilinx data center group. “Each customer has a unique set of offloads.”

Xilinx claimed the SN1000 family is the industry’s first “composable” SmartNIC offering software-defined hardware acceleration for all function offloads.  A CPU intensive task like AI can be offloaded, for instance, to optimize networking performance.

The Xilinx family of NICs includes the X2 introduced in 2019, the U25 from 2020 and now the SN1000 family operating at 100Gbps and 75W.

Xilinx also announced AI video analytics software called the Xilinx Smart World platform powered by the Video Machine-learning Stream Server for application acceleration. It can support multiple neural networks on a single Alveo accelerator card. Xilinx claimed it supports the lowest total cost of ownership for AI video analytics applications and cited Nvidia in comparison.

Smart World supports Aupera video processing, Mipsology’s tools for migrating AI apps to Alveo, and DeepAI’s AI training at the edge on Alveo accelerators.

Smart World will be important for retailers trying to control theft, for healthcare operations trying to track equipment and for building managers deploying virtual fencing, automation and crowd detection apps, Xilinx said. Tencent has used Aupera based on Xilinx technology for streaming video surveillance in retail settings and discovered a 90% savings in bandwidth with inferencing work at the edge instead of the cloud, Xilinx reported.

 Vitis development software also now includes accelerated algorithmic trading (AAT), a reference design for software developers to deliver sub-microsecond trading performance without the need for custom hardware development.  AAT is available free for Alveo customers.

Nanoseconds saved in trading is a significant advantage and can give a trader the ability to compete in more trading opportunities, noted Xilinx’s global business financial tech Alistair Richardson. An example design has been developed for trades on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange using Alveo on a server.

Xilinx also announced an FPGA app store with ready-to-deploy accelerated apps developed by Xilinx ecosystem partners. 

Xilinx will showcase its new data center products at Xilinx Adapt: Data Center March 24-25.

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