NVIDIA's BlueField DPU combines ConnectX networking with ARM processing power and specialized accelerators—creating the industry's most advanced infrastructure processor.
Silicon Layout
Inside the BlueField-3 Chip
The BlueField-3 integrates multiple specialized engines on a single die. Each block is optimized for specific infrastructure tasks, working together to achieve wire-speed processing.
BlueField-3 Die
🧠
ARM Complex
16× Cortex-A78 @ 3.0 GHz
🌐
ConnectX-7 Core
400G + RDMA + RoCE
🔐
Crypto
IPsec @ 400G
🔍
RegEx
DPI @ 400G
📦
Compress
LZ4/zlib HW
🤖
ML Infer
Traffic Class
💾
Memory Controller
DDR5-5600 + 16GB HBM2e
⚡
PCIe Gen5 Controller
128 lanes × 32 GT/s
Evolution
BlueField Generations
Each BlueField generation doubles key capabilities while adding new accelerators and features. The roadmap extends to 1.6 Tbps and beyond.
BlueField-1
2019
100G
Bandwidth
8× A72
ARM Cores
16GB
DDR4
BlueField-2
2020
200G
Bandwidth
8× A72
ARM Cores
16GB
DDR4
BlueField-3
2022
400G
Bandwidth
16× A78
ARM Cores
32GB+HBM
Memory
BlueField-4
2025
800G
Bandwidth
24× Grace
ARM Cores
64GB+HBM3
Memory
The Formula
How BlueField Came to Be
BlueField combines NVIDIA's proven ConnectX network adapter technology with ARM processing power. The result is a fully programmable infrastructure processor.
ConnectX-7
400G
Network Adapter
+
ARM Neoverse
16 Cores
Full Linux OS
=
BlueField-3
DPU
Programmable SmartNIC
Subsystems
Key Architectural Components
Each subsystem in BlueField is purpose-built for infrastructure workloads. Together, they enable complete offload of networking, storage, and security.
🧠
ARM CPU Complex
Programmable Control Plane
ArchitectureARMv8.2-A
Cores16× Cortex-A78
Clock Speed3.0 GHz
L3 Cache32 MB shared
🌐
Network Engine
Wire-Speed Data Plane
TechnologyConnectX-7
Bandwidth400 Gbps
RDMARoCE v2
Flow Rules16M entries
🚀
Accelerator Complex
Fixed-Function Engines
RegEx400 Gbps DPI
Compress100 GB/s
ML Inference10M cls/sec
StorageNVMe/SNAP
🔒
Security Engine
Inline Cryptography
IPsec400 Gbps
TLSAES-256-GCM
Secure BootTPM 2.0
Root of TrustHardware
Software
DOCA Software Stack
DOCA (Data Center Infrastructure on a Chip Architecture) is the SDK for BlueField. It provides APIs to program every accelerator and build custom infrastructure services.