ACADEMIA

NetLogic Microsystems announced the industry’s first open–source Xen hypervisor for high-performance multi-core MIPS64 processors. The new XEN hypervisor from NetLogic Microsystems enables highly efficient virtualization for next-generation communications, networking and server platforms using the industry’s best-in-class XLP and XLP II multi-core, multi-threaded processors.

Service providers, data centers and enterprises are increasingly embracing virtualization to increase hardware processing utilization and efficiency, unify networking and server farms, and reduce complexity and total cost of ownership. The Xen hypervisor is a fast and secure infrastructure virtualization solution that enables multiple instances of the same or different operating systems on a single processor. Each operating system will not only run completely independently, but also securely so that the software running on one operating system is protected from that on another operating system. Multiple applications, therefore, can run on a single processor, but operate completely independently from each other. This allows developers the opportunity to create compact, multi-function systems solutions that take full advantage of multi-core processors while minimizing power consumption. For example, a base station can be designed to provide both 3G and LTE services with a single processor, ultimately reducing the cost and complexity of the hardware, while enhancing the flexibility and capability of the system solution.

NetLogic Microsystems’ XLP and XLP II multi-core, multi-threaded processors are the industry’s most advanced, highest performance communications processors that feature an innovative quad-issue, quad-threaded and superscalar architecture with out-of-order execution capabilities. This uniquely superior architecture makes the industry-leading XLP and XLP II processor families ideally suited for the virtualization of multiple applications and multiple operating systems on each of the high-performance cores. The flagship XLP processor family in 40nm operates at up to 2GHz and delivers cache-coherent scalability of up to 128 NXCPUs™, while the next-generation XLP II processor family is designed for up to 2.5GHz and scalability up to 640 NXCPUs in the state-of-the-art 28nm process.

The Xen hypervisor is a thin software layer that resides between the operating system and the processor, thus providing an abstraction layer that allows each processor to run as multiple virtualized processors. As a unique open-source technology, the Xen hypervisor is developed collaboratively by a broad community comprising leading system original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), software and application providers, and semiconductor vendors. The Xen hypervisor from NetLogic Microsystems is freely accessible through the Xen open-source community. This will enable customers and third-party developers to easily incorporate and extend their systems solutions using the best-in-class XLP and XLP II multi-core processors.

“We are pleased to spearhead and pioneer the all-important virtualization efforts for MIPS64 multi-core communications processors. Because our embedded multi-core processors are designed to deliver the highest performance per core, they lend themselves particularly well to virtualization techniques by our leading customer base,” said Chris O’Reilly, vice president of marketing at NetLogic Microsystems. “Our Xen hypervisor extends our technology leadership and helps our customers and partners create new and innovative solutions with our revolutionary XLP and XLP II processor families.”

NetLogic Microsystems’ Xen hypervisor will be submitted to the open source community in the first quarter of 2012.