Fungible, a start-up based in San Jose, California, unveiled its Fungible Data Processing Unit (Fungible DPU), a microprocessor optimized for data interchange and data-centric computation in scale-out architectures.
Fungible describes its DPU as the “third socket” in data centers, complementing the CPU and GPU, and delivering significant gains in performance, footprint and cost efficiencies for next-generation, scale-out networking, storage, security, and analytics platforms. The company cites two core innovations that are tightly interwoven:
- A programmable data-path engine that executes data-centric computations at extremely high speeds, while providing flexibility comparable to general-purpose CPUs. The engine is programmed in C using industry-standard toolchains and is designed to execute many data-path computations concurrently.
- A new network engine that implements the endpoint of a high-performance TrueFabric that provides deterministic low latency, full cross-section bandwidth, congestion and error control, and high security at any scale (from 100s to 100,000s of nodes). The TrueFabric protocol is fully standards-compliant and interoperable with TCP/IP over Ethernet, ensuring that the data center leaf-spine network can be built with standard Ethernet switches and standard electro-optics and fiber infrastructure.
Fungible is launching two versions of its DPU:
- Fungible F1 DPU – an 800Gbps processor designed specifically for high performance storage, analytics and security platforms.
- Fungible S1 DPU – a 200Gbps processor optimized for host-side use cases including bare metal virtualization, storage initiator, NFVi/VNF applications and distributed node security.
Fungible also provides a full suite of software that enables the Fungible DPU and the products it powers to be used “out of the box”. This includes data-path stacks, host drivers and agents for x86, and a set of centralized cluster services that provides management, control and visibility of a large number of Fungible DPU-enabled products.
“The Fungible DPU is purpose built to address two of the biggest challenges in scale-out data centers – inefficient data interchange between nodes and inefficient execution of data-centric computations,” said Pradeep Sindhu, CEO and Co-Founder of Fungible. “Data-centric computations are increasingly prevalent in data centers, with important examples being the computations performed in the network, storage, security and virtualization data-paths. Today, these computations are performed inefficiently by existing processor architectures. These inefficiencies cause overprovisioning and underutilization of resources, resulting in data centers that are significantly more expensive to build and operate. Eliminating these inefficiencies will also accelerate the proliferation of modern applications, such as AI and analytics.”
Fungible raises $200 million for Data Processing Units (DPUs)
Fungible, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, closed $200 million in Series C financing for its efforts to create an entirely new category of programmable processor.
The Fungible Data Processing Unit (DPU) aims to deliver an order of magnitude improvement in the execution of data-centric workloads. The company sees its DPU as a fundamental building block for next-generation data centers.
Fungible has not yet announced its first products. In previous blog posts, Fungible has talked about Composable Disaggregated Infrastructure (DCI), where compute and storage resources are stored in separate servers and interconnected by a very high bandwidth, reliable and low-latency IP over Ethernet (IPoE) network fabric.
Fungible was founded by Pradeep Sindhu and Bertrand Serlet. Sindhu previously founded Juniper Networks, held roles as CEO and CTO, and is now chief scientist. Serlet previously founded a storage startup and before that was senior vice president of software engineering at Apple.
The latest funding was led by the SoftBank Vision Fund with participation from Norwest Venture Partners and existing investors, including Battery Ventures, Mayfield Fund, Redline Capital and Walden Riverwood Ventures. Fungible has raised $300 million to date.