As AI servers evolve, fixed-function management hardware can limit flexibility. Could a reconfigurable platform help manufacturers adapt security, telemetry and interfaces over a server’s lifecycle?
Logic Fruit Technologies is developing L-Nex, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based baseboard management controller (BMC) platform designed to help server manufacturers configure and update management functions for AI, cloud and datacentre infrastructure.
Designed around the Open Compute Project’s (OCP) DC-SCM 2.x architecture, the platform combines a management processor, host interfaces, remote keyboard, video and mouse (KVM), telemetry and hardware-rooted security. It runs OpenBMC and is designed to support management and security interfaces including Redfish, IPMI, PLDM/MCTP and SPDM.
Unlike conventional BMC architectures, where key hardware functions are fixed during silicon manufacture, the platform is being developed to allow selected management, interface and security functions to be configured during system design and updated after deployment. This could help server manufacturers adapt to changing protocols and security requirements without developing a new BMC application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).
The architecture is being designed with secure boot, firmware authentication, rollback protection and attestation. It also aims to support cryptographic updates, including migration towards post-quantum algorithms. Planned telemetry and analytics capabilities include thermal-anomaly detection, fan-failure prediction and power-trend analysis, operating independently of the host CPU.
The platform is intended to support multiple FPGA system-on-chip families while retaining a common software and management architecture. Logic Fruit also plans to offer controlled customer extensions, including access to software source and, under suitable licensing arrangements, FPGA fabric intellectual property (IP).
The L-Nex family is currently under development,and the product readiness is scheduled for the third quarter of 2027. Planned offerings include the BMC727, BMC628 and BMC928 hardware platforms, alongside the BMC SW27 software platform.
“AI and datacenter infrastructure is evolving at extraordinary speed, but many of the critical control functions inside a server are still defined by fixed-function silicon,” says Sunil Kar, President and CEO of Logic Fruit Technologies. He added that the platform is intended to let customers shape their server-management requirements during development and continue evolving them after deployment.
Click here for the official announcement.
