• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, October 11, 2022

Cloud services are changing the semiconductor industry. On Tuesday, Google Cloud and Intel announced a new co-designed chip on Tuesday aimed at making the cloud more secure with better performance. Is there a chip that specifically carries out the function of search in Google's future?

The new chip -- E2000, code named code named Mount Evans and co-designed by Google and Intel -- can be used to take over packet processing work from other CPUs. It also offers more security if a variety of customers share the same CPU in the cloud.

“We are pleased to have codesigned the first ASIC infrastructure processing unit with Google Cloud, which has now launched in the new C3 machine series,” stated Nick McKeown, Intel senior vice president, Intel Fellow and general manager of Network and Edge Group. “C3 VMs will run workloads on 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors while they free up programmable packet-processing to the IPUs securely at line rates of 200 gigabits per second.”

Google will use the E2000 chip in a new C3 machine VM, also powered by Intel's fourth-generation Xeon processors.

The System on a Chip hardware architecture introduced in C3 VMs can enable better security, isolation, and performance. The purpose-built architecture will also allow Google to offer a richer product portfolio, such as support for native bare-metal instances. The E2000 chip also will become available to other customers.

In September, the U.S. commerce department reached a cooperative research and development agreement with Google to produce chips that researchers can use to develop new nanotechnology and semiconductor devices.

The deal was signed between Google and Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The chips will be manufactured by semiconductor company SkyWater Technology at its Bloomington, Minnesota, semiconductor foundry.

Google will pay the initial cost of setting up production and will subsidize the first production run, Reuters reported, citing the agreement. NIST, with university research partners, will design the circuitry for the chips.

Google has worked with Intel and other semiconductor companies for years. At CES in 2020 during Intel’s keynote, the chipmaker spent time outlining the progress made on the Project Athena with 25 devices in the market and at least 25 more planned for 2020. They took the time to not only outline exactly what the Project Athena effort is all about, but they also explained a new partnership with Google while showing off the new Samsung Galaxy, Google Chromebook and ASUS Chromebook Flip C436.