SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Jan 31, 2012) - [ SeaMicro ], in cooperation with [ Intel Corporation ] (NASDAQ: [ INTC ]) and [ Samsung Semiconductor ], Inc., today announced the widespread availability of the first fabric-based Intel® Xeon® micro server, the [ SeaMicro SM10000-XE™. ] ([ See companion release for details ].) The addition of the quad-core [ Intel® Xeon®-based ] SM10000-XE to the [ SM10000™ family ] makes SeaMicro the first and only company able to bring the massive benefits of microservers to all segments of the scale out data center market.

The SeaMicro SM10000 family delivers a single architecture capable of supporting different processor types, each optimized for a different workload. The SM10000-HD™, based on the Intel Atom™ processor, is optimized for highly parallel workloads, such as those found in the Web tier, while the newly announced SM10000-XE, featuring the low voltage, quad-core Intel® Xeon® processor E3-1260L based on Sandy Bridge architecture, addresses the heavyweight scale out workloads. The SeaMicro SM10000-XE, which is now shipping in volume, is the most energy efficient, highest-density Intel® Xeon® server available.

"Today we have announced the lowest-power, highest-density, highest-bandwidth Intel® Xeon®-based server ever built," says [ Andrew Feldman ], CEO of SeaMicro. "SeaMicro now brings the benefits of micro servers -- efficiency and massive density -- to small and larger-core workloads and to all parts of the scale out data center. Combining the SM10000 architecture with the Samsung [ Green DDR3 memory ] and Intel® Xeon® processors, SeaMicro now sets a new bar for energy efficient compute in the datacenter."

"Datacenter operators are looking for compelling Intel®-based solutions that solve their power, space and bandwidth problems," says Kirk Skaugen, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Intel's Datacenter and Connected Systems Group. "SeaMicro's systems -- based on its unique fabric -- are now able to deliver even greater efficiencies across micro server applications that benefit from the Intel® Xeon® processor E3 family's energy efficiency to address a broader range of scale out datacenter applications. These benefits are available today to customers around the world."

Jim Elliott, Vice President of Memory Marketing and Product Planning at Samsung Semiconductor, Inc., says, "We pioneered Green DDR3 memory, the most advanced DRAM solutions, so that innovative system designers like SeaMicro can build high-density energy-efficient servers. Our low-power green DDR3 can help a great deal to optimize a server's TCO, resulting in significant power savings and a positive ROI for IT users. Our collaboration with SeaMicro has helped to produce the first family of micro servers that can support all segments of the IT marketplace."

The SeaMicro SM10000-XE™
Born of the combined insights of market leaders Intel, Samsung and SeaMicro, the SM10000-XE is the most energy efficient, highest-density, highest-bandwidth Xeon®-class server ever built. It delivers breakthrough power and space savings to "brawny cores" and to applications requiring more processing power.

The SM10000-XE contains 64 quad-core Intel® Xeon® processor E3-1260L CPUs for 256 2.4 GHz cores in a 10 rack unit system, for 1,024 cores in a standard rack. The SM10000-XE supports up to 32 GB of DRAM per socket, for a system total of 2.04 terabytes. These high-performance processors are tied together by the Freedom™ Supercompute Fabric, which delivers 12 times the bandwidth per unit compute of a traditional server. The SM10000-XE also supports up to 16 10-gigabit Ethernet uplinks or 64 1 gigabit Ethernet uplinks. And unlike other micro servers, it can support up to 64 SATA hard disks or solid-state disks without reducing computational density.

New Technologies Powering the SM10000-XE™: SeaMicro's Freedom™ Fabric ASIC, Low voltage Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 Family and Samsung Green DDR3

Pioneered by SeaMicro, microservers are designed for the unique requirements of large data center environments, offering massive reductions in power and space. But until now, these advantages have been confined to a small segment of the data center -- work that could be broken up into small parallel tasks and therefore could be handled by small efficient processors. The realm of heavyweight compute -- which constitutes the majority of the data center -- was foreclosed to micro servers.

SeaMicro, working closely with Intel and Samsung, saw the opportunity to deliver the power and space efficiencies of microservers to larger, heavier-weight compute. And, in so doing, SeaMicro brought the remarkable total cost of ownership savings inherent to the micro server architecture to all parts of the scale-out data center and all related workloads. To achieve these goals, the SM10000-XE incorporates three important innovations: a new fabric ASIC developed by SeaMicro, the latest Sandy Bridge-based Xeon® processor from Intel and new power-efficient Green DDR3 from Samsung.

SeaMicro's Freedom™ Fabric ASIC
Today SeaMicro announced the industry's first and only second-generation fabric ASIC, the SeaMicro Freedom™ Fabric ASIC. It is the only fabric technology designed and optimized to work with CPUs that have large cores -- such as Xeon® -- and small cores -- such as Atom™. The Freedom ASIC contains several key technologies:

• SeaMicro's Input/Output Virtualization Technology eliminates all but three components from SeaMicro's motherboard -- CPU, DRAM, and the ASIC itself -- thereby shrinking the motherboard, while reducing power, cost and space.
• SeaMicro's new TIO™ (Turn It Off) technology enables SeaMicro to further power-optimize the mini motherboard by turning off unneeded CPU and chipset functions. Together, SeaMicro's I/O Virtualization Technology and TIO technology produce the smallest and most power efficient motherboards available.
• The Freedom Supercompute Fabric is built of multiple Freedom ASICs working together, creating a 1.28 terabits per-second fabric that ties together 64 of the power-optimized mini-motherboards at low latency and low power with massive bandwidth.

SeaMicro paired these innovations with the most efficient quad-core Intel® Xeon® processor E3-1260L and the most advanced, power-efficient DRAM -- Samsung's 1.35V, 30nm class, Green DDR3. The Intel® Xeon® processor E3-1260L has a 45W TDP envelope, 2.4GHz CPU core based on the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture, features 4 cores, supports 8 threads with Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology, and is able to increase its clock speed up to 3.3GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0. It provides 30 percent better performance per watt compared with prior generation processors.

Samsung's high density Green DDR3 achieves more than a 70 percent power savings over 1Gb 1.5V 50nm class DDR3, contributing much to an improved TCO. Further, the DIMM's unusually small form factor (67.6x30mm) provides additional space saving benefits from a board real estate standpoint, therein increasing system design flexibility.

What Customers Say
Customers from all segments of the data-center market recognize the benefits of using microservers and of matching workload to processor size.

"We are a trusted partner in the US intelligence community," said Chad Wagner, president of CompSec. "We have worked with our customers to deploy both SeaMicro's Atom™-based and Xeon®-based systems. The exceptional compute density and low power draw have made them the right choice for mission critical applications. Our intelligence community customers have also found success using SeaMicro's Freedom Supercompute Fabric to deliver huge amounts of compute power to remote and hard-to-access locations. This greatly reduces response times, provides faster and more in-depth analysis, and helps to advance their mission."

Matthew Zeier, director of IT Infrastructure and Operations at Mozilla, echoed the same theme. "By offering microservers with small cores based on Atom™ and large cores based on Xeon®, SeaMicro enables us to match our workload to processor type across the data center. With these two types of processors in the same system architecture, SeaMicro is able to meet the computational needs of our entire data center while driving down operating expenses by saving us power and space. We are a very happy customer."

Availability
The SM10000-XE is available today worldwide. Its list price for a base configuration is $138,000. For more information on SM100000-XE, see the [ companion news release ] or visit [ www.seamicro.com ].

About SeaMicro
SeaMicro is transforming the data-center landscape by building servers that draw a fraction of the power and space of traditional servers. By delivering breakthrough innovations born of multiple technology domains -- CPU design, virtualization, supercomputing, and networking -- SeaMicro has created a new server category, called microservers, specifically designed for scale-out infrastructures such as those found in the Web tier, online gaming, searching, and index computation. SeaMicro was founded in 2007 and is backed by Khosla Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Crosslink Capital, and leading public corporations. The company also received the largest Department of Energy grant given to a server company, $9.3 million, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.