Cavium Collaborates with Microsoft to Demonstrate ThunderX2 Platform Compliant with Microsoft’s Project Olympus Specifications

Open Compute Project expands platform availability with Cavium’s ThunderX2® ArmV8.1 workload optimized data center server processors

SAN JOSE, CA, March 20, 2018 – Cavium™, Inc., (NASDAQ: CAVM), a leading provider of semiconductor products that enable secure and intelligent processing for enterprise, data center, wired and wireless networking, today announced a major milestone in its collaboration with Microsoft in the Open Compute Community with ThunderX2 Arm^®-based servers demonstrating the Project Olympus Platform.

A live demonstration that includes web applications hosted by a Windows IIS webserver running natively on ThunderX2 based on Microsoft’s Project Olympus platform will be shown at the Open Compute Project (OCP) U.S. Summit 2018 in San Jose, CA, at the Cavium booth A37 from March 20^th – 21^st.  The annual Summit brings together more than 3,000 key decision makers, executives, engineers, developers and suppliers. Together, they help grow, drive and support the open hardware ecosystem in, near and around the data center and beyond.

The ThunderX2 product family is Cavium's second generation 64-bit Armv8-A server processor SoC for data center, cloud and high-performance computing applications. The family integrates fully out-of-order high-performance custom cores supporting single and dual socket configurations. ThunderX2 is optimized to drive high computational performance delivering outstanding memory bandwidth and memory capacity. The new line of ThunderX2 processors includes multiple workload optimized SKUs for both scale up and scale out applications and is fully compliant with Armv8-A architecture specifications as well as Arm's SBSA and SBBR standards. It is also widely supported by industry-leading operating system, hypervisor and software tool and application vendors.

Cavium and Microsoft originally announced their collaboration at the OCP U.S. Summit in March 2017, where the two companies demonstrated cloud service workloads developed for Microsoft’s internal use running on ThunderX2-based server platform.  This was followed in November 2017 with the additional announcement of the companies releasing the detailed specification of ThunderX2 server motherboard for Microsoft’s Project Olympus including block diagram, management sub-system, power management, FPGA card support, IO connectors, and physical specifications.

“Today’s demonstration is another key milestone in the collaboration between Microsoft and Cavium to drive Armv8-based workload enablement and optimization in Microsoft’s Project Olympus,” said Dr. Leendert van Doorn, Distinguished Engineer, Azure, Microsoft Corp. “Our collective commitment to the OCP community along with exciting platform innovation is the type of leadership our customers and partners have come to expect.  Working with Cavium to bring ThunderX2 to Project Olympus continues to demonstrate this leadership.”

“We are very excited to expand our collaboration with Microsoft to demonstrate the first dual socket 64-bit Armv8-A OCP platform  with ThunderX2,” said Gopal Hegde, Vice President & General Manager of the Data Center Processor Group, Cavium. “ThunderX2 continues to demonstrate the features and performance required by the most compute and IO intensive applications in the data center.” 

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Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM) offers a broad portfolio of infrastructure solutions for compute, security, storage, switching, connectivity, and baseband processing. Cavium’s highly integrated multi-core SoC products deliver software compatible solutions across low to high performance points enabling secure and intelligent functionality in Enterprise, Data Center and Service Provider Equipment. Cavium processors and solutions are supported by an extensive ecosystem of operating systems, tools, application stacks, hardware-reference designs, and other products. Cavium is headquartered in San Jose, CA with design centers in California, Massachusetts, India, Israel, China, and Taiwan. For more information about the Company, please visit: http://www.cavium.com/. 

Media Contact
Angel Atondo
Sr. Marketing Communications Manager
Cavium, Inc.
Telephone: +1 408-943-7417
Email: angel.atondo@cavium.com

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Cavium and Sprint Collaborate for NFV Testing on Packet’s Public Cloud

Sprint orchestrates Virtualized Mobile Core Network on Containers running on Cavium ThunderX2™ArmV8.1 workload optimized data center server processors in the Packet bare metal cloud

SAN JOSE, CA, and BARCELONA, SPAIN February 26, 2018 – Cavium™, Inc., a leading provider of semiconductor products that enable secure and intelligent processing for enterprise, data center, wired and wireless networking, announced a collaboration with Sprint Corporation, a national carrier in the United States, using Packet, a cloud service provider, public cloud based on Cavium ThunderX2 Arm®-based servers and virtualized mobile core network orchestrated on Containers. 

Sprint’s testing has demonstrated promising total cost of ownership (TCO) advantages over conventional architecture. A live demonstration of this testing, including a complete end-to-end containerized mobile network with live traffic on commercial UE, will be shown at Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona, Spain, at both the Arm booth (Hall 6 Stand 6E30) and Cavium booth (Hall 2 Stand 2M61). 

The containerized mobile core network (cEPC) runs at Packet, a commercially available public cloud, on Cavium ThunderX2 Arm-based servers. The radio access network is a 3GPP compliant split-RAN implementation with both the vBBU (virtualized baseband unit) and the remote radio unit running on Cavium silicon (ThunderX2 and OCTEON Fusion-M® processors). 

“We see a great opportunity driving better economics and TCO with increased power savings using Arm-based servers, thereby enabling further distribution to the edge,” said Aaron Hinkle, Systems Architect, Technology, Innovation and Architecture, Sprint.

“Arm and our ecosystem of partners have been actively growing systems, especially targeting NFV and service provider network use cases,” said Drew Henry, senior vice president and general manager, Infrastructure Business Unit, Arm. “This is a significant step forward in completing end-to-end virtualized mobile network deployed on an Arm-based infrastructure which will enable the next trillion connected devices.” 

“We are very excited to collaborate with Sprint to test innovative NFV deployment scenarios and to showcase the promising TCO and power savings live demonstrations using our ThunderX2 Arm-based servers and 3GPP compliant virtualized RAN implementation,” said Raj Singh, Vice President & General Manager of the Network & Communication Group, Cavium. “Cavium has been collaborating with many service providers on innovative NFV projects both directly and in open source communities utilizing our differentiated and highly scalable Arm-based processor and SoC families, rich software, and hardware eco-systems, and strong application domain expertise.”

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About Cavium
Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM) offers a broad portfolio of infrastructure solutions for compute, security, storage, switching, connectivity, and baseband processing. Cavium’s highly integrated multi-core SoC products deliver software compatible solutions across low to high performance points enabling secure and intelligent functionality in Enterprise, Data Center and Service Provider Equipment. Cavium processors and solutions are supported by an extensive ecosystem of operating systems, tools, application stacks, hardware-reference designs, and other products. Cavium is headquartered in San Jose, CA with design centers in California, Massachusetts, India, Israel, China, and Taiwan. For more information about the Company, please visit: https://www.cavium.com/. 

Media Contact
Angel Atondo
Sr. Marketing Communications Manager
Cavium, Inc.
Telephone: +1 408-943-7417
Email: angel.atondo@cavium.com

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Cavium Partners with China Unicom to Showcase M-CORD NFV/5G at Mobile World Congress 2017

ThunderX® ARM V8.1 workload optimized data center server processors and XPliant® SDN fabric for deployment solutions

SAN JOSE, CA, and BARCELONA, SPAIN February 27, 2017 – Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), a leading provider of semiconductor products that enable secure and intelligent processing for enterprise, data center, wired and wireless networking today announced a full implementation of the ON.Lab CORD (Central Office Re-architected as Data center) SDN/NFV platform software stack on its ThunderX ARM based data center COTS server architecture. In addition, the leaf and spine switching integral to CORD is now supported by Cavium’s XPliant programmable SDN switch.

As part of the previously announced collaboration Cavium and China Unicom have worked closely on porting and integrating the entire M-CORD software stack to a single unified hardware architecture optimized for NFV operation and SDN control. The Cavium M-CORD rack is a fully integrated system implementing the full set of features from the edge of the Radio Access Network (RAN) to the ONOS and XOS SDN and orchestration software. It allows for a virtually turn-key operation in any central office for a full NFV C-RAN deployment.  The combination of the ThunderX ARM based data center server processor with the award winning highly programmable XPliant switch provide a compelling platform for M-CORD.

China Unicom and Cavium will work together to trial the system in live locations to optimize the vBBU performance and core network provisioning.

“We are very excited to collaborate with China Unicom in this key milestone in the M-CORD initiative. A homogenous hardware architecture fully optimized for NFV and 5G functions is a key pre-requisite for field deployments,” said Raj Singh Vice President & General Manager of the Network & Communication Group at Cavium. “This differentiated and highly scalable implementation will allow operators such as China Unicom to rapidly explore and implement next generation network topologies.”

“Our collaboration with Cavium has shown real progress and we are looking forward to trying the new ThunderX based M-CORD and virtualized RAN implementation in our network,” said Dr. Tang Xiongyan, CTO of Network Technology Research Institute, China Unicom”. “We believe that our partnership will provide significant benefits to both parties.”

About Cavium
Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), offers a broad portfolio of infrastructure solutions for compute, security, storage, switching, connectivity and baseband processing. Cavium’s highly integrated multi-core SoC products deliver software compatible solutions across low to high performance points enabling secure and intelligent functionality in Enterprise, Data Center and Service Provider Equipment. Cavium processors and solutions are supported by an extensive ecosystem of operating systems, tools, application stacks, hardware reference designs and other products. Cavium is headquartered in San Jose, CA with design centers in California, Massachusetts, India, Israel, China and Taiwan.

Media Contact 
Angel Atondo
Sr. Marketing Communications Manager
Telephone: +1 408-943-7417
Email: angel.atondo@cavium.com 

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Mont-Blanc project selects Cavium's ThunderX2™ processor for its new ARM-based HPC platform

Accelerates ARM architecture adoption in Exascale-class supercomputing

Les Clayes – Barcelona, 16 January, 2017 – The Mont-Blanc European project has selected Cavium's (NASDAQ:CAVM) ThunderX2 ARM server processor to power its new High Performance Computing (HPC) prototype. The ambition of the Mont-Blanc project is to define the architecture of an Exascale-class compute node based on the ARM architecture, and capable of being manufactured at industrial scale. The project takes a holistic approach, encompassing not just hardware, but also operating system and tools, and applications. The new platform will therefore be a key asset to all Mont-Blanc partners, to assess options for maximum compute efficiency, to further develop the software ecosystem for ARM HPC platforms, and to implement life-size tests.

The ThunderX2 product family is Cavium's 2nd generation 64-bit ARMv8-A server processor SoCs for High Performance Computing in the Data Center and cloud applications. With fully out of order high performance custom cores supporting single and dual socket configurations, ThunderX2 is optimized to drive highest computational performance delivering outstanding memory bandwidth and memory capacity. The ThunderX2 processor family is fully compliant with ARMv8-A architecture specifications as well as ARM's SBSA and SBBR standards and is widely supported by industry leading OS, Hypervisor and SW tool and application vendors.

The new Mont-Blanc prototype will be built by Atos, the coordinator of phase 3 of Mont-Blanc, using its Bull expertise and products. The platform will leverage the infrastructure of the Bull sequana pre-exascale supercomputer range for network, management, cooling, and power. Atos and Cavium signed an agreement to collaborate to develop this new platform, thus making Mont-Blanc an Alpha-site for ThunderX2.

"ThunderX2 is a server-class chip designed for high compute performance. With the adoption of this new generation of power- and performance-efficient processors, we are entering a new and exciting dimension of the Mont-Blanc project. This already gives us a glimpse of what a European exascale-class HPC platform could be in the near future." says Etienne Walter, coordinator of phase 3 of the Mont-Blanc project.

"As the race to Exascale intensifies, we are pleased to be the vendor of choice to partner with Atos to deliver Mont-Blanc platform" said Rishi Chugh, Director of Marketing, Data Center Processor Group at Cavium. "ThunderX2 builds on established architecture and ecosystem of ThunderX delivering performance competitive with next generation of incumbent processors".

About the Mont-Blanc project
The current third phase of the Mont-Blanc project continues to take a holistic approach, encompassing hardware, operating system and tools, and applications, with the following targets:

• Defining the architecture of an Exascale-class compute node based on the ARM architecture, and capable of being manufactured at industrial scale;
• Assessing the available options for maximum compute efficiency;
• Developing the matching software ecosystem to pave the way for market acceptance of ARM solutions.

The project is run by a European consortium that includes:

• Industrial hardware/software technology providers: Atos, using its expertise in supercomputing & Big data following the acquisition of Bull (coordinator - France); ARM, the world leader in embedded high-performance processors (United Kingdom); and AVL, the world's largest independent company for the development, simulation and testing technology of powertrains (Austria);
• Academic/research HPC centres: Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (Spain); Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (Switzerland); CNRS (CNRS/LIRMM - France); University of Stuttgart (HLRS -Germany); University of Cantabria (Spain); University of Graz (Austria); University of Versailles Saint Quentin (France).

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 671697.

More information on www.montblanc-project.eu | @MontBlanc_EU 

Press contact
Pascale Bernier-Bruna
Tel: (+33) 1 30 80 32 04
pascale.bernier-bruna@atos.net

About Cavium
Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), offers a broad portfolio of integrated, software compatible processors ranging in performance from 1Gbps to 100Gbps that enable secure, intelligent functionality in Enterprise, Data Center, Broadband/Consumer, Mobile and Service Provider Equipment, highly programmable switches which scale to 3.2Tbps and Ethernet and Fibre Channel adapters up to 100Gbps. Cavium processors are supported by ecosystem partners that provide operating systems, tools and application support, hardware reference designs and other products. Cavium is headquartered in San Jose, CA with design centers in California, Massachusetts, India, China and Taiwan. For more information, please visit: : http://www.cavium.com

Media Contact
Angel Atondo
Sr. Marketing Communications Manager
Telephone: +1 408-943-7417
Email: angel.atondo@cavium.com

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Cavium and China Unicom Sign Collaboration Agreement for Virtualized RAN Technology

Parties to work together to accelerate virtualized BBUs based on General-Purpose Processors

SAN JOSE, CA December 8th, 2016 - Today, Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), a leading provider of semiconductor products that enable intelligent processing for Enterprise, Telco, MSP and cloud data centers, announced an agreement with China Unicom to accelerate the design and development of Virtualized BBU and provide a path for 5G adoption. The collaboration will focus on commercializing vBBU systems using general purpose hardware based on Cavium’s ThunderX® workload optimized data server processors which are built on ARM architecture. In addition, Cavium has joined the China Unicom CORD Industry Alliance and will drive adoption of open source architecture and technologies in China together with China Unicom.

China Unicom and Cavium will work together on new innovative fronthaul solutions, system architecture and vBBU performance and deployment. This collaboration allows Cavium to align with China Unicom’s commercial networks technology development and innovation, research feasibility of Next Generation Virtualized Wireless Access Network, perform lab and field testing, evaluate results, drive deployment of developed technologies into commercial network, carry out lab and field performance test and assessment, accelerate pilot and application of new technical innovations in real-world networks.

“We are very pleased to collaborate with China Unicom in this critical area. As network capacity continues to be stretched and the user demands continue to grow the industry is faced with significant challenges which cannot be solved by traditional means,” said Raj Singh General Manager of the Wireless Broadband Group at Cavium. “The use of advanced general purpose hardware such as Cavium’s ThunderX workload optimized data severs allows us to provide a highly scalable virtualized solution for these requirements.”

“Virtualized network based on general purpose hardware and open source technologies represents the overall direction for future network changes. China Unicom partners with Cavium, a leader in virtualized BBU technology field, to drive R&D of virtualization products based on general purpose processors, thus laying a solid foundation for building new generation of network infrastructure,” said Dr. Tang Xiongyan, CTO of Network Technology Research Institute, China Unicom. 

About Cavium

Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), offers a broad portfolio of integrated, software compatible processors ranging in performance from 1Gbps to 100Gbps that enable secure, intelligent functionality in Enterprise, Data Center, Broadband/Consumer, Mobile and Service Provider Equipment, highly programmable switches which scale to 3.2Tbps and Ethernet and Fibre Channel adapters up to 100Gbps. Cavium processors are supported by ecosystem partners that provide operating systems, tools and application support, hardware reference designs and other products. Cavium is headquartered in San Jose, CA with design centers in California, Massachusetts, India, China and Taiwan. For more information, please visit: http://www.cavium.com.

Media Contact

Angel Atondo

Sr. Marketing Communications Manager

Telephone: +1 408-943-7417

Email: angel.atondo@cavium.com

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