Mixtile Cluster Box is a PCIe switcher that connects multiple Blade 3 SBC via PCIe interface, allowing them to work as a 4-node cluster, providing higher computing power, faster network speed, and larger storage space. Cluster Box consists of a backplane, a control board, and a customized small chassis with fans inside. Mixtile Blade 3 SBC can be connected to the Cluster Box chassis through the U.2 interface. Cluster Box has an ASM2824 PCIe Switch chip, with 4 downstream configured as PCIe 3.0 X4 and connected to the U.2 interface.
Built-in PCIe 3.0 Switch Support 4 x Mixtile Blade 3 SBC 4 x NVMe M.2 Slot Compact Steel Case with Cooling Fans
Mixtile Cluster Box empowers you to tackle complex tasks, accelerate AI/ML computations, and embark on data-intensive projects easily.
It will be available soon. Stay tuned for more updates!
This is really neat! Can you provide any more information about the control board?
I believe it would be very useful if the external SFF-8643 ports can be configured as a single Gen3 x8 upstream port for connection to a host PC. Is this configuration supported?
Control board use general SoC and the function is configuring PCIe Switch and four endpoints correctly. After that, four Blade 3 boards will work as PCIe endpoints and could communicate with each other at high speed. The control board is running linux system and there is one console to manage four nodes, such as powering on/off nodes, serial console debugging, flashing OS image.
Yes, that configuration is supported. As control board only have PCIe 2.0 one lane so we reserve two SFF-8643 ports for connecting external host PC when high performance PCIe RC is needed. One SFF-8643 port support PCIe Gen3 x4 so the user could connect two SFF-8643 ports to a host PC, and the host PC could work as Gen3 x8 PCIe RC.
Built-in PCIe 3.0 Switch
