Intel Rolls Out Networking Chip Targeting Boom in 5G Base Stations

Intel, trying to take advantage of the global battle to build 5G cellular infrastructure, introduced its first family of networking chips for 5G base stations. The Santa Clara, California-based company has also landed deals to start supplying many of the world’s largest vendors of telecommunications gear with the networking-focused chip, the Atom P5900.

The processor is based on 10-nanometer production, giving it higher performance per watt in a smaller package. The chip is dedicated to the demands of 5G networks, which offers far faster data transfers while lacking the latency of 4G LTE technology today, according to Intel. It also features hardware accelerators, including integrated packet processing, linked to the Atom CPU cores over Intel's scalable coherent interconnects.

Navin Shenoy, general manager of Intel's data platforms group, said the company is trying to become the global leader with 40% share of the market for base station silicon by 2021, a year ahead of the company's previous forecast. Intel is fighting against rivals including Marvell Technology, which has rolled out out its latest generation of Octeon SoCs used in 5G networking gear, as well as Broadcom and Samsung, and others.

The chip, code named Snow Ridge, could be one of the Silicon Valley company's last chances to tap into the global boom in 5G networking chips. Last year, Intel pulled out of the market for 5G modems used in smartphones, divesting the business to Apple for $1 billion. Intel also partnered with Mediatek to build 5G baseband modems for use in personal computers. It plans to roll out the chips to customers before the end of 2021.

The Snow Ridge chip improves throughput and latency over its current generation of Atom SoCs, code named Denverton, which is based on Intel's Goldmont architecture. The chip has dedicated network accelerators that support up to 100 Gbps of packet processing over Ethernet, and 15% more throughput than discrete network interface cards. It also uses up to 20 Ethernet SerDes cores for up to 440 Gbps of switching. 

The chip incorporates up to 24 cores based on Intel’s Tremont CPU architecture, and it improves packet processing throughput by more than three times by balancing out the loads on the single-threaded cores, according to Intel. The chip also offers significantly faster secured network communications by handling cryptography and other chores in hardware versus software. It can tolerate temperatures in the range of -40°C to 85°C.

The networking chip features 16 PCIe Gen 3 interfaces and 16 I/O lanes that can serve as USB Gen 3, PCIe Gen 3 or SATA interfaces. It also contains 4 USB Gen 2 ports. Every core is connected to 32 KB of L1 cache, and quad-core clusters have another 4.5 MB of L2 cache. The cores also feature up to 15 MB of shared L3 cache, Intel said. The chip supports up to 128GB of DDR4 DRAM and more than 5% faster memory bandwidth.

Intel has enlisted three of the world's largest vendors of telecommunications gear as its first customers. Intel plans to start selling the chip to Ericsson and Nokia, the No. 2 and No. 3 vendors behind China's Huawei. Together they controlled about 50% of the global market share in 2018, according to market researcher IHS Markit. The company is also selling the 5G base station silicon to ZTE, which followed with 11% of the total market.

Intel's move into the market gives customers another weapon to wield against Huawei, the world's No. 1 vendor of telecom equipment. Huawei has maintained its global lead in in 5G technology despite relentless pressure from the United States to suppress the rollout of its 5G networking gear. Huawei, which had more than 30% market share in 2018, builds chipsets for its 5G base stations through its HiSilicon semiconductor unit.

It is also fighting Samsung, which has struggled to muscle into the market for cellular infrastructure but sprinted out ahead in the race to build 5G base stations. Samsung, which is looking to win 20% share in the global market by the end of the year, designs and manufactures the chips used in its 5G radios itself. Intel said that the Snow Ridge chip will be used in more than 6 million 5G base stations around the world by 2024.

Ron Westfall, research analyst at Futurum Research, said delays in the development of Intel's new 10-nanometer node has hindered the rollout of 5G network equipment from Ericsson and Nokia. But it has been boosting production of 10-nanometer chips since last year. Westfall added that "the U.S. government is determined to contain Huawei's presence in global 5G networks, bolstering Intel's prospects outside the China market." 

"All this bodes well for Intel's 5G networking processor prospects," he added.