CASwell Launches CAR-2085 Server System For The Network Edge And Transceiver Base Stations

Energy-Efficient 1U Appliance Based On Intel Atom "Snow Ridge" With Over 20 Ethernet Ports Can Be Upgraded By FPGA Or GPU Accelerators

2021/09/28 – CASwell, a leading manufacturer of innovative and high-performance SD-WAN (uCPE/vCPE) and network systems, releases the new CAR-2085 server system in low-profile 1U form factor. This appliance provides great energy efficiency with up to 24 Intel Atom processor cores and more than 20 high-speed Ethernet ports but can also be enhanced with a FPGA or GPU accelerator card. The CAR-2085 can best be used for transceiver base stations by communication service providers or by enterprises at the network edge.

The CAR-2085 Is based on the latest Intel Atom P5000 processor (“Snow Ridge”) with up to 24 cores. Its “Tremont” core architecture offers at least 25 percent more performance than the last generation (“Goldmont”) due to improvements of critical microarchitecture parameters like expanded buffer, register and cache sizes. The production node was also improved to 10 nanometer so the already good energy efficiency of the Intel Atom series of processors got even better. Furthermore, the latest Atom generation supports higher speed memory of up to DDR4-2933.

The comprehensive number of Ethernet ports of the CAR-2085 is handled by the onboard Broadcom Hurricane 3 (BCM56160) network switch – a commonly required network chip by communication service providers. The Broadcom BCM56160 switch offers industry-leading integration and low power in a small footprint. Here it’s responsible for four 10-GbE SFP+ ports, eight GbE RJ45 connections, four GbE and four 2.5-GbE RJ45 PoE+ ports. The last set of ports provide up to 240 watts of Power over Ethernet (PoE).

These 20 Ethernet ports can be expanded by a PCI Express 3.0 network card but the internal PCIe x8 slot can also carry a FPGA or GPU accelerator card in full-size form factor to enhance specific performance features. As this PCIe expansion card can have a board power of up to 150 watts and PoE can use 240 watts, the integrated power supply provides 600 watts output to cope with all necessary power requirements.

Internally, the CAR-2085 offers three key components: one M.2 (2280) PCIe x4 slot for storage, one M.2 PCIe x1 slot for 4G/5G modules and one mini PCI Express (mPCIE) x1 slot for WiFi or another LTE card. The last two slots can carry modules with SIM cards to provide convenient access to mobile networks.

The CAR-2085 is built for transceiver base stations but can also be deployed as a network server. The system can be positioned directly at the network edge but also between edge and regional data centers to close the gap between these important network nodes. A prominent example would be a next generation central office that needs an efficient network server to provide switch functions and network security features for a manageable number of users and customers.

Availability

The CASwell CAR-2085 can be configured according to customer demand or requirement and samples for customer evaluation will be available in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Please contact your local CASwell representative or sales for any questions.

More information about the CASwell CAR-2085 can be found here:
https://www.cas-well.com/products/network-security-management/1u-network-appliance/car-2085/