AMI and Microsemi Corporation Highlight Multiple Areas of Collaboration at AMI “Firmware and Beyond” Event, October 27, 2017

AMI and Microsemi Corporation Highlight Multiple Areas of Collaboration at AMI “Firmware and Beyond” Event, October 27, 2017

AMI in the News

NORCROSS, GEORGIA / TAIPEI, TAIWAN: AMI, a global leader in BIOS and UEFI firmware, server and remote management tools, data storage products and unique solutions based on the Linux® and Android™ operating systems, will host a “Firmware and Beyond” technology roadmap event at its AMI Taiwan Branch office in Taipei on Friday, October 27, 2017. As part of the event, representatives from Microsemi Corporation will join the event to discuss the multiple areas of collaboration and joint development currently in progress between the two companies and show how the combined resources of Microsemi and AMI translate to direct regional support for customers on a truly global basis.

Recent areas of collaboration include:

  • MegaRAC® FP-X firmware and RSD components for NVMe over Fabrics solutions using Microsemi Switchtec™ PCIe switches
  • MegaRAC SP-X support of out-of-band management for Microsemi’s SmartRAID and SmartHBA, HBA storage solutions
  • AMI custom FW development services and solutions for Microsemi’s FPGA family

One key area of collaboration between the two companies featured at the event is a NVMe-over-Fiber (NVMe-oF) demo. The demo combines AMI’s MegaRAC FP-X fabric management firmware with Microsemi Switchtec PCIe switches. Using the industry’s highest density and lowest power PCIe switch from Microsemi, this solution enables data centers to operate and scale efficiently, providing lower total cost of ownership via resource pooling while using best-in-class storage, networking and virtualization technologies available. This powerful combination of technologies from both companies provides essential building blocks for OEM and ODM customers.

ODMs and OEMs can use the same AMI MegaRAC development framework currently used for BMC firmware to create fabric solutions for Microsemi Switchtec PCIe switches. This tested combination lowers development cost and speeds time to market. Microsemi’s P2P (Peer-2-Peer) memory work supported by Switchtec PCIe switches in combination with Flashtec NVRAM cards and NVMe controllers enables large data streams to move in NVMe-oF applications without CPU intervention, leading to better throughput, less latency and higher Quality of Service (QoS).

AMI and Microsemi have been collaborating on implementing support for Microsemi StorageCore within the MegaRAC SP-X development framework to provide efficient out-of-band RAID management via BMC. This enhancement to MegaRAC SP-X is planned for release as a feature pack in early 2018.

AMI continues to be an ISV partner for custom firmware solutions using Microsemi FPGAs. As the leading vendor of third party BIOS and BMC firmware globally, AMI’s domain expertise complements the many use cases for FPGAs. Microsemi is a leading vendor of FPGA components to meet the wide variety of applications and workloads required for complex data center solutions.

“AMI’s MegaRAC software is being widely adopted by all major data center OEMs, ODMs, and Hyperscale customers. Microsemi has collaborated with key partners such as AMI for this application as part of Microsemi’s Accelerate Ecosystem Program. By collaborating with AMI, Microsemi’s storage and FPGA solutions become an integral part of the data center landscape which would lead to more design-wins,” said Amr Elashmawi, Microsemi’s vice president of corporate and vertical marketing.

AMI collaborates with Microsemi as part of Microsemi’s Accelerate Ecosystem, which facilitates collaboration between Microsemi and leading firms in the semiconductor integrated circuit (IC), intellectual property (IP), systems, software, tools and design spaces to integrate, test and deliver pre-validated designs and system-level solutions for end customers in Microsemi’s key vertical markets—aerospace and defense, data center, communications and industrial. The Accelerate Ecosystem is designed to reduce time-to-market for end customers and time-to-revenue for Microsemi and ecosystem members via technology alignment, joint marketing and sales acceleration. Learn more at https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/4194-partners.

“We are witnessing how NVMe over Fabric is quickly supplanting traditional methods of storage access. This, combined with the ability to quickly and easily compose and decompose pooled resources increases utilization, therefore lowering TCO. As such, we are excited about the capabilities inherent in this joint solution between AMI and Microsemi for the opportunity it represents to reach a larger share of OEM and ODM customers. We warmly welcome Microsemi to our ‘Firmware and Beyond’ event and look forward to even greater collaboration between Microsemi and AMI for a variety of product lines in the future, beyond our current efforts in PCIe switches, RAID technology and FPGAs,” said Subramonian Shankar, President, Founder and CEO of AMI.

Switchtec™ is a trademark of Microsemi Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

About AMI

AMI is Firmware Reimagined for modern computing. As a global leader in Dynamic Firmware for security, orchestration, and manageability solutions, AMI enables the world’s compute platforms from on-premises to the cloud to the edge. AMI’s industry-leading foundational technology and unwavering customer support have generated lasting partnerships and spurred innovation for some of the most prominent brands in the high-tech industry. 

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