16-core ARM A15 based LSI Axxia silicon spotted

Techcon 13: It’s real, it runs, and if you have a basestation to upgrade it is for you

LSI logoThat 16-core A15 Axxia communications chip LSI keeps talking about is finally here and SemiAccurate got their hands on one. Not only that but LSI was showing them running in real systems on the ARM Techcon show floor.

The chip below was real silicon, I know it says Mech Sample but given how much these things cost you can hardly blame LSI for putting non-working ones on the show floor. That said the Axxia 5516 was running demo code in another booth. The device itself is pretty tame looking, mainly just a lidded SoC that looks like this.

LSI Axxia 5516 chip

Under the hood lurks 16 ARM A15s

Not much more to say about the device, it works and normal ARM consumer benchmarks are pretty useless to describe a base station device. Angry Birds FPS is not a good placeholder but the number of copies of Angry Birds pulled from a CDN and sent over the air per second might be. Anyone know any good comms hardware benchmarks? Until then if you don’t get why we say this, take a look at the architecture of the Axxia for more.S|A

Have you signed up for our newsletter yet?

Did you know that you can access all our past subscription-only articles with a simple Student Membership for 100 USD per year? If you want in-depth analysis and exclusive exclusives, we don’t make the news, we just report it so there is no guarantee when exclusives are added to the Professional level but that’s where you’ll find the deep dive analysis.

The following two tabs change content below.

Charlie Demerjian

Roving engine of chaos and snide remarks at SemiAccurate
Charlie Demerjian is the founder of Stone Arch Networking Services and SemiAccurate.com. SemiAccurate.com is a technology news site; addressing hardware design, software selection, customization, securing and maintenance, with over one million views per month. He is a technologist and analyst specializing in semiconductors, system and network architecture. As head writer of SemiAccurate.com, he regularly advises writers, analysts, and industry executives on technical matters and long lead industry trends. Charlie is also available through Guidepoint and Mosaic. FullyAccurate