Embedded servers are rapidly taking over the traditional server market

In recent years, with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, big data and the deployment of 5G commercial services, our work and life are becoming more and more intelligent and data-based. Changes in server workloads and usage scenarios have pushed suppliers and their technologies in different directions. Therefore, the server market is in a transition period in 2019. Many enterprises and cloud providers have a continuous demand for purchasing new hardware, which has led to new growth in the global server market.

According to the latest data from Gartner, global server revenue grew 17.8% in the fourth quarter of 2018, and shipments grew 8.5% year-on-year. Compared with the full year of 2017, global server shipments grew 13.1% and revenue grew 30.1% in 2018.

“Hyperscalers and service providers continue to increase investments in their data centers to meet growing demand from customers and purchase of enterprise services from cloud providers,” said Kiyomi Yamada, principal analyst at Gartner. “Although the growth rate will slow compared to 2018, technology product managers at server providers should prepare for continued growth in server demand in 2019.”

In terms of market share, x86 and Intel have long dominated the server market, but this dominance is no longer a foregone conclusion as different needs and purchasing patterns are changing the landscape. Intel is still delivering CPUs based on 14nm, while AMD has been busy delivering cores for servers using 10nm and 7nm processes in 2019. AMD EPYC is a 10nm CPU, and the new EPYC 2, codenamed "Rome", is manufactured using a 7nm process. Intel's x86 dominance is increasingly challenged by AMD, as several vendors including Dell, HPE, and congatec announced in 2019 that they will offer servers or modules equipped with AMD EPYC processors.

In addition, x86 as a whole faces new pressure from ARM technology in the data center market. Although ARM is still an emerging category in the server field, ARM-based servers may become an emerging trend in 2019, especially in the embedded and mobile fields.

In response to the changes that technological development has brought to the server industry, Yifei.com editors conducted an in-depth interview with Lin Meihui, Business Director of congatec, at the 21st Industrial Expo in 2019.

What are the products and technologies that Congatec will focus on exhibiting at the 2019 Industrial Expo?

Congatec Business Director Lin Meihui said that Congatec wanted to exhibit a lot of things. The focus of this year's exhibition is the embedded edge server part, that is, the 100-watt ecosystem of embedded edge and micro servers. Congatec launched the COM Express Type 7 server module two years ago. On this basis, this year it strengthened its cooperation with AMD and launched the conga-B7E3 module equipped with a 3GHz AMD EPYC Embedded 3000 dual-die processor, supporting a maximum TDP of 100 watts, with up to 16 cores and 32 threads. This world-leading 100-watt server module uses the COM Express Basic specification of 95x125mm, and can be installed with new heat sinks and heat pipe adapters. Even the smallest 1U server can obtain efficient heat pipe cooling capabilities. This is the first highlight of this exhibition.

The second highlight is that based on the previously proposed 3.5-inch single-board computer equipped with the 8th generation Intel Core mobile processor, congatec cooperated with a German lens manufacturer and launched a "lens + single board" retail solution, thus improving the application of single-board modules. When it comes to this 3.5-inch single board, its quality and strength should be emphasized, which is suitable for some life-related fields, such as rail transportation and the medical industry.

In addition to the above products, COME products corresponding to the 7th generation Atom and 8th generation Intel processors were also exhibited at this year's exhibition.

How do you define the concept of edge server?

Some time ago, congatec conducted exploration and investigation with Intel on the needs of some large customers and found that in the era of big data, if all the data collected by sensors are sent back to the final server for processing, the speed will become too slow. If some edge servers are placed in the middle nodes, a faster response and communication can be made in the middle. Such a solution can better meet the needs of large customers such as Baidu or JD.com.

What is the specific information processing process of the intermediate processing of the edge server you mentioned?

The edge server is an intermediate role. It processes the information collected by the sensor for the first time and then transmits it back to the sensor. In other words, the control of the sensor is completed by the edge server, and the final server completes some data training and decision-making work, just like the central control unit in the power equipment. They open up the last mile of the power equipment system.

Is this edge server currently being shipped?

congatec is a module supplier. The problem that module suppliers often face is that customers do not know what applications our modules can be used for. For example, for Type 7, we will provide one or two application solutions from module to carrier board and then to heat sink, thus providing customers with a reference design. As for shipments, Intel's solution is already being shipped, but edge servers are a relatively new field, so there are no specific products being shipped yet. However, we will use modules as a benchmark and cooperate with manufacturers to try some overall system solutions.

Why choose AMD EPYC Embedded 3000 processors?

AMD's EPYC Embedded 3000 processor has received very good feedback in the server industry, but most people are more concerned about the well-known Intel. We and AMD have in-depth cooperation in both solutions and promotions. As you can see, the specifications of our server processors are very high, such as 16 cores and 32 threads.

Will AMD's solution be somewhat different in positioning from Intel's previous solutions?

AMD's solution level is between the Intel Atom processor C3000 solution and the Intel Xeon processor D-1500 solution. AMD processor solutions support higher power, up to 100W. 100W is something that has never been seen in the COME series, so we would like to emphasize that ordinary radiators simply cannot meet the requirements. Our engineers have put a lot of effort into the radiator of this 100-watt server, such as adding heat pipes, etc., to speed up CPU heat dissipation through water cooling.

Does congatec have any internal statistics on the share of AMD and Intel in its business? Is AMD continuing to grow?

At present, the ratio is basically 2:8, and Intel still accounts for a large proportion, because in the rail transportation and medical industries, the workload of safety regulations and reliability verification for software debugging is very large, and they will not easily change their solutions. However, for industries such as digital signage and game consoles, AMD's GPU graphics processors are more effective, so there is a certain increase. In general, this is not a big change for congatec, and for servers, congatec still wants to try to promote AMD's solution to see if it will be so well accepted.

Has the area of ​​the COM Express Type 7 conga-B7E3 board increased?

COM Express Type 7 continues the spirit of the module and is a standard COM E specification of 95*125mm. Because customers have already thought about the interface and requirements when designing their equipment or carrier board, they can switch between Type 7 conga-B7AC, conga-B7XD and conga-B7E3. Except for some independent interfaces, the remaining 80 to 90 percent of the hardware is fully compatible, including PIN OUT. As for the software part, it needs to be debugged.

Assuming that some companies need to upgrade their products, will congatec focus on recommending the AMD series?

Because AMD's model has more IO interfaces than Intel's, if customers require four 10 Gigabit network ports, large memory, and a high-end processor, congatec will recommend AMD's COME products.

What are the specific application scenarios of the "lens + single board" solution mentioned above? Are there low-end, medium-end and high-end classifications?

The application scenarios of the "lens + single board" solution include industrial machine vision, smart cabinets, unmanned supermarkets, etc. Our products will be biased towards the high-end market, because that will reduce our cost pressure.

Just now you emphasized that the characteristics of congatec single board are its quality and strength. Can you talk about it in detail?

There are many single board manufacturers in the market, especially 3.5-inch single boards. If you ask what are the highlights of congatec's products, we will guide them to the application level. For example, life-related equipment such as rail transit cannot have any quality errors. They run on the road 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a large temperature difference. In this regard, congatec has great advantages, especially the German design quality and our production quality are highly recognized.

What is the specific range of high and low temperatures? Will there be cold start problems in rail transit applications?

The operating temperature range in our product manual is 0~60℃, but when we do design verification experiments, we will relax it to -10~75℃, or even a wider range. However, our users often have the need to use it beyond the specification. At this time, we will do some screening work to ensure that there will be no quality problems when it is used beyond the specification. Some manufacturers in our industry will divide the temperature range into several levels for customers to choose from, so as to sell at a higher price. In fact, the work behind this is screening.

As for the cold start problem, there are many solutions in the application solution, such as adding a heating method in the system. If you are using a congatec board, you can do the heating design on a whiteboard; if it is a single board, you can add a heating design to the device.