Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has released further details of its Torrenza project, which will one day allow server manufacturers to optimize servers for specific tasks by placing accelerator chips right on the motherboard.Since unveiling Torrenza in June, AMD has been working on the specifications of a new physical interface that chip manufacturers can use to develop custom accelerator chips that will plug into a server motherboard, alongside or in place of an AMD processor, said Doug O’Flaherty, AMD’s divisional manager for acceleration strategy. That interface, the Torrenza Innovation Socket, will use the same 1207-pin Revision F socket that AMD is using for its latest generation of Opteron chips, and will communicate with the main processor using a HyperTransport connection, O’Flaherty said. HyperTransport is a specification for high-speed communications between chips or circuit boards, proposed by AMD and now managed by the HyperTransport Consortium. AMD also announced that the project had won the support of six server manufacturers: Cray, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens Computers, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun Microsystems.“We have exposed our road map in great detail to [equipment manufacturers],” O’Flaherty said. “We are expecting some of the first pieces of the platform in the latter half of 2007.” Server manufacturers could use the interface to add chips to speed up the processing of XML (Extensible Markup Language) or floating-point calculations, or even to improve gaming performance with a physics accelerator, said Giuseppe Amato, AMD’s technical director sales and marketing for Europe. Such accelerators are already available for some applications as add-in PCI Express cards, he said. Manufacturers of accelerator chips will be able to improve their performance further by moving them closer to the main processor and connecting them via the Torrenza Innovation Socket. “It’s close to PCI Express. The physical layer changes, but the protocol is PCI Express,” he said.-Peter Sayer, IDG News Service (Paris Bureau)Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe