Meta helped design a chip for its own network, but you'll never be able to
buy it

Date:
Thu, 28 Nov 2024 20:19:00 +0000

Description:
Meta and Marvell Technology have developed the FBNIC chip.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Meta
and Marvell Technology design new chip hardware together FBNIC looks to boost internal networking capabilities at Meta The chip will likely never go on commercial sale though

A collaboration between Meta and Marvell Technology has resulted in the development of a powerful new network chip.

The chip, called FBNIC, was designed with the aim of enhancing Metas internal networking capabilities, reducing downtime and increasing overall efficiency.

Announced at the 2024 OCP Global Summit, FBNIC claims to offer significant performance improvements - but it wont be available for commercial sale anytime soon. A custom approach to networking

The partnership created a custom Network Interface Controller (NIC) developed using a 5nm process, combining custom firmware, software, and hardware to deliver optimized network performance aimed at helping Meta streamline its networking operations.

The FBNIC chip supports a wide range of Ethernet network interfaces, ensuring Metas infrastructure can handle large amounts of data with high-speed connections, making it ideal for the massive scale of the company's
operations - especially when factoring in AI .

It also comes with a multi-host PCIe interface, which supports four independent Gen5 x4 ports allowing the chip to communicate efficiently across multiple servers. Furthermore, the custom firmware control provides access to all hardware internals, giving Meta the ability to tailor the chips performance to its specific needs.

In addition to developing FBNIC for its use, Meta has chosen to contribute
the board design to the Open Compute Project (OCP), an initiative aimed at promoting open-source hardware designs for data centers.

The future of large-scale, data center computing will increasingly revolve around optimizing semiconductors and other components for specific applications and cloud infrastructure architectures, said Raghib Hussain, President of Products and Technologies at Marvell.

Its been exciting to partner with Meta on developing their custom FBNIC on
our industry-leading 5nm accelerated infrastructure silicon platform. We look forward to the OCP community leveraging the board design for future innovations."

Via HPCwire You might also like These are the best network switches Meta AI's latest feature can show you in a fantasy world Take a look at the best small business routers



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/facebooks-parent-company-helped-design-a-chip-bu t-you-wont-be-able-to-buy-it


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