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Supermicro at CES 2018: X11SRA Xeon W Motherboard on Display
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Supermicro at CES 2018: X11SRA Xeon W Motherboard on Display

Another product on display over at Supermicro at this year’s CES was that of a Xeon W motherboard. Xeon W is Intel’s professional platform that is almost a copy/paste of the high-end desktop X299 platform, but uses a professional grade chipset and offers support for ECC and RDIMM memory. Like Skylake-X, the Xeon W platform supports up to 18-core CPUs (Xeon W-2195), with almost the same specifications, except for support up to 512GB of DRAM. In previous years, these two families of products were served by a single platform, but recently Intel has seen fit to separate them. As a result, we are seeing fewer and fewer professional-grade motherboards hitting the open market, leaving most sales in the hands of pre-built OEMs. With Supermicro being one of those OEMs but with a consumer line, they are planning to offer at least one consumer/professional motherboard for this market, and that is the X11SRA we saw in the booth.


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If we look at the X11SRA, we can see a lot of similarities with the consumer X299 motherboards from Supermicro. Features like the dual U.2 ports from the C9X299-PG300 are here, along with reinforced DRAM slots and reinforced PCIe slots. The layout with dual M.2 drives seems to be a copy paste too, and there are a couple of unused pads on the bottom left which would normally be occupied by an Aspeed AST2500 management chip with some memory, as seen on the X299-PGF. With these pads present, there is likely to be an ‘X11SRA-F’ version alongside this board in due course.

This X11SRA at the booth, we were told, was not a final version. The chipset and power delivery heatsinks still need to be finalized, and it would seem that there is an additional heatsink to the left of the DRAM slots near the rear IO for something (multi-gigabit Ethernet?). Visually, it is plainly obvious that the two sets of DRAM slots are at different heights on the motherboard – this would normally be jarring for a consumer motherboard, but for professional builds, it does not matter too much.

The CPU power delivery shows only a 5-phase solution, which on a consumer motherboard would be dreadfully low. Xeon W processors are not designed to support overclocking, so Supermicro can make their motherboards to fit just within specifications and warranty. It’s worth noting that the spec list for the board states it supports only up to 165W, which is the 18-core Xeon W-2195, rather than Supermicro’s PG300 board that stated up to 300W.

Other features on the board includes a Realtek ALC1220 codec, which is a surprisingly high-end choice for a professional motherboard, however it does not feature much in the way of advanced filtering or PCB separation that we see on consumer motherboards. Internet connectivity comes via an Intel I219-LM gigabit Ethernet controller, and Aquantia’s AQC108 5-gigabit network controller. USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) seems to be supported through two Type-A ports on the rear panel.

As the X11SRA is still a work in progress, the release date is still TBD.

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European Union Fines Qualcomm $1.23 Billion for Anti-Competitive Apple Deal
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European Union Fines Qualcomm $1.23 Billion for Anti-Competitive Apple Deal

This morning the European Union’s European Commission became the latest regulatory body to fine Qualcomm over anti-competitive actions undertaken by the company. The investigation, which we’ve been expecting the results of for some time now, found Qualcomm guilty of abusing its dominant market position in LTE modems, with Qualcomm paying Apple to exclusively use its modems. As a result the Commission has levied the largest fine to date against Qualcomm, totaling over €997 million ($1.23 billion).

Qualcomm has been under scrutiny by regulators in one form or another for over a decade at this point. The company has previously been fined by China, South Korea, Taiwan, and there is still an ongoing investigation in the United States. While the precise infraction has varied some from fine to fine, in all cases regulators have cited Qualcomm for abusing its position in the cellular modem market in order to freeze out any competition. This has included their position to forcibly bundle unrelated patents and refusing to license out standards essential patents to customers who didn’t buy Qualcomm chips.

The European Commission’s case, by contrast, is perhaps the most interesting of the cases as it’s the most contemporary, dealing with Qualcomm’s actions from 2011 to 2016. The Commission’s case is solely focused on LTE shenanigans – other cases have tended to focus on CDMA or a mix of CDMA and LTE – with the regulatory body finding sufficient evidence of an anti-competitive Apple deal to charge the company under antitrust laws.

The Apple deal, which we first found out about in a US FTC investigation last year, had Qualcomm paying Apple royalty rebates in order to ensure Apple’s exclusive use of Qualcomm’s LTE modems. And while royalty rebates alone are not inherently illegal, the fact that Qualcomm was doing it in order to prevent other competitors from gaining a foothold in the LTE modem market – primarily Intel – is what makes it illegal. And while it’s just one of many handset vendors in the EU, Apple ships a large enough percentage of all handsets that landing an Apple deal can (and did) make or break an LTE modem vendor; so stopping Apple from looking outside Qualcomm would go a long way towards ensuring no other competition for Qualcomm cropped up.

Meanwhile, Apple’s cooperation with investigators has driven a large wedge between the two companies. Apple has been suing Qualcomm for another $1 billion in royalty rebates it says are still owed, and Qualcomm has been suing Apple for what they see as an unfounded global attack against the company. Apple has since begun multi-sourcing modems – starting with Intel’s XMM 7360 for the iPhone 7 in 2016 – so the European Commission’s case is more about punishing Qualcomm for past actions than it is about correcting any present market conditions.

Finally, while the Commission’s findings are not binding in other nations, this ruling sets the stage for what’s likely to be the most interesting of Qualcomm’s ongoing cases: the United States Federal Trade Commission. The US FTC has been investigating Qualcomm since the start of 2017 over the Apple deal and other aspects of Qualcomm’s business, so the fact that the Commission found enough evidence to fine Qualcomm indicates that the FTC could rule similarly on the same evidence. Never mind any other regulatory bodies out there who haven’t already begun investigating Qualcomm over the Apple deal. As a result this is likely not the last time we’ll see Qualcomm fined for their misdeeds with Apple.

Update: Qualcomm has issued a statement saying that they disagree with the Commission’s ruling, and that they will be appealing the fine to the General Court of the European Union.

“We are confident this agreement did not violate EU competition rules or adversely affect market competition or European consumers,” said Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm. “We have a strong case for judicial review and we will immediately commence that process.”

Update 01/25: Qualcomm has also sent over a note reiterating that Apple broke the exclusivity agreement with the launch of the iPhone 7 in September of 2016. The agreement was set to expire 3 months later

The Samsung Exynos M3 - 6-wide Decode With 50%+ IPC Increase
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The Samsung Exynos M3 – 6-wide Decode With 50%+ IPC Increase

With the public announcement of the Exynos 9810 having finally taken place, Samsung engineers are now free to release information on the new M3 CPU microarchitecture. We have a first look into the new microarchitecture and what kind of improvements w…