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/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> The Cafe >> ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1351626892 Message started by Oldfeller on 10/30/12 at 12:54:51 |
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Title: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 10/30/12 at 12:54:51 http://liliputing.com/2012/10/arm-cortex-a50-chips-coming-in-2014-bringing-higher-performance-lower-power-consumption.html Read this, it is the first release of the 2014 chip matrix for 64 bit chips. Items of note: AMD listed as a major ARM chip supplier (told you so) Chips will be three (3) times more powerful and four (4) times as energy efficient as to what is shipping now (A15?). What does this mean? In 2013 Apple will be in production on their version of this chip having had most of 2012 as their "mulligan" period of pre-knowledge. Note the 20 nanometer size that is quoted as that is the best Apple can do at the moment and the pre-release designs were done for them. Lookout for some kickass products from Apple to pop up in 2013. Look for Intel to rev their engines real quick in 2013 to DO SOMETHING as they are not able to meet/exceed ARM's stuff right now and the march to sub 20 nanometer continues and the new ever better stuff keeps on coming right at them. Intel is getting plowed under .... |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by 360k+ on 10/30/12 at 15:53:43 I'm surprised Apple doesn't buy AMD and cut everybody off at the knees. That way they would also control their own chip supply. They have more money than the US Gubernut and God put together. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 10/30/12 at 16:03:26 Apple has asked AMD to build some chips for them, 64 bit chips of their custom Apple design. Both Apple and AMD are currently stretched to their current production limits at 20 nanometer, but both will be able to do that business in year 2013-14. Apple has the capital to go past that into the new <20 nanometer technologies, but AMD may run out of the stray billion or three it takes to go on to the next level unless they can sell a whole lot of 20 nanometer 64 bit ARM chips in the next two years. Apple has been known to fund stuff like that though, they did so for Samsung just a year or so ago. AMD is working hard to survive, make no mistake about it. Beyond 20 nanometer lies technologies that involve etching 3-D fins on the chip substrate to create thick sections to keep voltage loss down at each transistor gate intersection. Right now only the South Koreans (TSCM) and Intel can do these special tricks, but such will have to become common place in the next 2 years. Apple offered TSCM a one time payment of x.x billion dollars to be a sole source supplier of ARM 64 bit chips just to them exclusively, but TSCM turned them down as the market for these <20 nanometer chips will be HUGE and Apple will only get a one year jump on the "everybody else" crowd (which one year of time has already partially run itself out). Apple was trying to buy an extension for this technological edge for themselves, but that trick has failed at this point in time. They can't buy it from AMD as AMD doesn't have it to sell. Intel does have it though .... but Intel is miffed at Apple at the moment because Apple just dumped their laptop chips for 2013. So, Apple is hiring and is building their own <20 nanometer facility at this time. What is 5-10 measly billion dollars to Apple, a mere drop in the bucket .... http://www.rethink-wireless.com/2012/10/30/arm-unveils-64-bit-cortex-a50-family.htm https://www.google.com/search?q=Apple+chip+fab+plants&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a http://www.eteknix.com/news/apple-lures-away-one-of-samsungs-chip-designers/ http://venturebeat.com/company/taiwan-semiconductor-manufacturing-company/ |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by rfw2003 on 10/30/12 at 17:23:12 hrmmm these little chips sound like the perfect thing for doing my next server with. I can hold out that long before I need to re-build it. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 10/30/12 at 18:09:10 http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2221129/arm-unveils-64bit-cortexa50-microprocessors-as-amd-comes-on-board Yup, know what you mean -- I had planned to "double up" my existing system next spring (2 gigahertz quad core A-15) but when threatened with 5-6 gigahertz at 1/4 the power draw and 1/4 the heat to dispose of, I too can likely wait a little bit more. Plus, I cannot believe Intel won't try a technological trump card play of some kind. AMD is doing the smart thing now, "if you can't beat them, join them" philosophy works for AMD and it may keep them alive a few more years. Microsoft has spread out its cards on the table at this point in time -- and it does not look compelling. So, Microchoke will have to come out with a completely fixed Windows 9 within 8-10 months to fix what they frick'd up with Win8, but if Win 9 doesn't swing heavily into ARM's chip orbit at that point then MS is simply betting their ass that Intel can come across with a world slaying chipset that will only work with their Microsoft software. And if they continue to do this "Wintel, mated up to the end of time" thing, well it may be the end of time for them both. The 800 pound gorilla, Apple, will still be driving the technological bandwagon and they are riding fast behind a thoroughbred matched team of light fast Unix/BSD based RISC software and home built ARM 64 bit chipsets .... with good 'ol Google whipping them onward from their own chariot with Android and Chrome OS running on stock ARM chipsets to make sure they keep up the pace. :D ARM hard macro designs are what I am watching for, as the cheapie Chinese chipset guys snap those "ready to run at TSCM" designs up and stick them into these little stick PCs and little development boards that I will be buying. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 10/30/12 at 20:20:31 http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2108712/arm-windows-systems-wont-run-windows-apps We sorta knew this was the case from all the way back in 2011, but there was a vague "future plan to make available" referred to several times (given out by lower level Microsoft people later on at seminars, etc). Now MicroChoke and Intel seem to have reaffirmed their marriage vows together and the ARM processors are back to being illegitimate step children. Wintel to the bitter end (be it sooner or later). :-/ I am waiting for them super duper killer chips to come out from Intel to keep this from being a somewhat dead end or "abusive marital relationship". Otherwise, 'ol MicroChoke isn't gonna wind up being totally faithful to the marriage come Win9 time as they don't have to go down into the dust if Intel can't carry their new little super chip baby to term. Annulments can happen in cases of documented barrenness, check out your history books. ;) |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by 360k+ on 10/31/12 at 08:28:00 I sure hope MS has another rabbit left to pull outta the hat, as I still have their crappy stock in my porty. However, this time I'm not so sure yet another "version of winders" (yawn - ho hum) will do the trick? |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 10/31/12 at 10:56:54 In a cell phone world where tick-tock happens, but it happens twice as fast and chip power goes up by 3-6x Moore's law each 18 months instead of just doubling, the old school PC world where a Windows version lasts 3-5 years just isn't going to cut it. Windows 8 was noticeably not up to snuff on tablets the day it came out (no talkee to your tablet, certainly no talkee back from your Win8 surface machine) -- what will that level of behind be like after Apple and Google tweak at each other for another 6-12 months, driving their mutual mad rush to <20 nanometers to totally eclipse Intel's 22 nanometer technology and Microsoft's latest & greatest just released (already behind) Win8 technology level? Wintel holds to the pace they are going at now, they will be competing with the cheap Chinese chip guys for the year old leftovers (and not price competitive at all in their "chosen marketplace"). Watch Wine/Reactos -- if it comes to fruit (mostly based off of a Wine basis like it is now) then MS really has no grip upon it legally. Wine can run most older x86 software now on Linux (and Android IS Linux) so a Google/Ubuntu supported Wine/Reactos/Android "run anything" might well come to pass if MS remains stubborn. If you can suddenly run ALL your old x86 favorite softwares off a ARM chipset and MS won't do the same, who needs MS anymore? Of course, if Intel comes up with a wonder chip that clearly outperforms ARM 64 at an equivalent price point, then MS has a place to hang that stubborn hat. But they need that super chip at a price competitive point and they need it SOON. But 'ol Intel isn't going to be able to get $999.99 for a new generation chip any more, not when the competition's latest greatest sells for $33-50 a chip. It simply isn't going to happen any more. Intel still sells a lot of chips to a lot of people, but as these products are redesigned to use the lower cost similar power ARM chip their other markets will evaporate just like the PC and Server markets are doing. Trying to keep ARM out by refusing to give full Windows support for it intentionally is sorta stupid in the long run, actually. x86 software vendors might just write some ARM versions and then where are you, Microsoft? Google Nexus 7 (with speech commands and reply) $199.99 (current sales at over 1 million per month) Amazon Kindle Fire (load Google Now for speech) $199.99 (current sales at just under a million per month) Apple IPad 3s (with speach commands and reply) $499.99 (peak sales at 3 million on first weekend it came out) Win8 Surface (no talkee) $599.99 ($699 with the keyboard cover) (sales figures being held secret -- rumored to be only 50,000 units sold on introduction weekend) ::) So, for the price of the keyboard cover, I can almost buy another Nexus 7 or a Amazon Kindle Fire for my wife? |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/09/12 at 02:53:13 Back to the main topic of ARM Cortex A57 series 64 bit chips and why did they go there so durn soon after releasing A15 &A7 big-LITTLE (other than APPLE said to make me one because they want to dump Intel to the curb real real bad ;) ) This is ARM, explaining themselves when asked why they released another whole generation of chips after only 1 year. "Smartphones are transitioning from content consumption devices to content creation devices. Now that smartphones are able to capture high quality video and photographs, consumers want to edit and share this content, driving the need for further processing power delivered by the Cortex-57 processor. Content creation is not limited to multi-media, but also documents. A Cortex-57 processor-based smartphone, wirelessly connected to a screen, keyboard and mouse,delivers a full laptop experience that consumers receive from their typical laptop today. and APPLE will have it first, doing their Wow thing yet again The Cortex-A57 processor: Can deliver all the compute capability a typical consumer needs, from replacing your gaming console to your laptop in innovative portable form factors Efficiently run legacy ARM 32-bit applications Features cache coherent interoperability with ARM Mali™ family graphics processing units (GPUs) for GPU compute applications Offers optional reliability and scalability features for high-performance enterprise applications Connects seamlessly to ARMs interconnect with up to 16 cores configurations with more in the future" OK, please remember that APPLE is the 800 pound gorilla in the computer industry today. APPLE has a muti-billion dollar deal with ARM to give them all new chip designs one full year ahead of release to the rest of the pack so APPLE can always be "innovating and exciting" to the APPLE freaks out there. APPLE has just bought them a new 20 nanometer and below production line that was installed into their own facility. Notice this chip is designed at .... 20 nanometer. Amazing, ain't it? Apple wants this chip, ARM/APPLE has been working on it for a year now and it is now time for the release to everybody else (who is up to their necks in A7 and A15 pre-production jitters to get the last generation of chip designs out for 2013 at 28 nanometers. Tick-Tock boys and girls, it is relentless and the year is up now. And you do realize that this tock down to 20 nanometers puts ARM right at the point where Intel actually is right now with their current best production processes? Intel, you are seeing the plow blade coming down the row towards you. Time for that rabbit, if you still got one left in the hat. It is going to be a tough act, that rabbit from the hat. ARM just doubled their output power yet again (per core) and cut power consumption by a third (per core). And these are 64 bit cores, which can run two 32 bit instructions simultaneously so the effective core count for all existing ARM based software (which is still all 32 bit) is like doubled yet again on top of everything else. I don't think Intel can fix the existing issues as they are already too late -- APPLE has this stuff NOW and is working out their production bugs on their own equipment and is bumping on TSCM's butt to get their 20 nanometer line up and running as well. And everybody else is waiting in line for the world's overtasked 28 nanometer production capacity to make the A15 and A7 ...... |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Cavi Mike on 11/09/12 at 09:05:38 Are you just anti-Intel or something? Until ARM starts taking over the PC market (which is a LOOOONG ways off) Intel doesn't have to change much. And when I say PC market I actually means PC's, not those stupid tablets that are only good for being large cel-phones without the actual phone function. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by rfw2003 on 11/09/12 at 10:13:18 0022352A0E2A2826430 wrote:
I'll admit I'm anti-Intel. I have been ever since I built my first AMD based computer with the K6 chip long ago. Ever since I've only used AMD and been very happy with my choice. Only thing I have now that uses intel is my custom built Lappy that I got this year, and that's only because they didn't offer AMD processor for the build or I would have gone with the AMD. R.F. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/09/12 at 10:58:05 5173647B5F7B7977120 wrote:
Cavi, Intel is missing the boat, failing to show up at the game, not watching the baby. Making great big power hungry chips to go into PCs is fine, they have that down to an art and are the best that there is at doing that, no argument (give it a year or so and we might have to talk again). But the PC as we know it is ENDING within the next 5-10 years, replaced by a phone that sits in your pocket and that phone can run your keyboard and your mouse and your screen from your pocket. Now, you and I may still be typing on our old PCs because they will still work and we won't throw them away. But we won't be buying a new one, not a Hewlett Packard from Best Buy anyway because they won't exist any more. (both companies are already in trouble) There will still be some business uses for a real PC, same uses that used to run on the old SUN workstation level machines. CAD, graphics, heavy duty database applications and that sort of stuff that needs some real horsepower to run. But these things can also live at a server farm and you just run a lighter application through the web for input data and printing and such. The normal person will be running software that hasn't even been invented yet through their personal data center (which they carry in their pocket). Cost will drive this change. Intel gets more money right now just for the main CPU on a new generation PC than an entire new top end cell phone costs. They can't get away with this in a future where the phone can do everything a PC can do, from your pocket no less. Unless somebody really NEEDS that PC for work related something nobody is going to shell out the dollars for one. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by verslagen1 on 11/09/12 at 11:26:16 For the time being, I can't see my industry going with ARM pc's or distributed computing. Not enough HP or issues with security. And everything I use is ported to microsh!t only. Not that it can't be ported to something else soon. Until linux in whatever flavor hits the high ended design world, aint gonna happen. once the key is turned... goodbye ms. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by rfw2003 on 11/09/12 at 11:47:50 5E4D5A5B44494F4D4619280 wrote:
What industry is it you work in verslagen? About the only thing I use MicroSuck for anymore is the very few games I play and also the video transcoding software I use for getting all my movies on my home server. Everything else I can do in Linux, well almost if I want to stream from Netflix I have to be in Winblows but other then that Linux is what I use for most everything anymore. I'm sure I could do the transcoding in Linux as well just haven't really looked into it yet. What I use for decoding the DVD's and Blu-Rays is only in WinBlows compatible format right now and that really sucks but I'm hoping one day they will release a Linux version. R.F. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by verslagen1 on 11/09/12 at 12:05:56 aerospace |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by rfw2003 on 11/09/12 at 12:13:35 very cool. Something I wish I would have gotten into myself long ago. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Cavi Mike on 11/09/12 at 12:40:01 57747C7E7D74747D6A180 wrote:
I can't tell if you're really that ignorant or if you just don't use a computer for anything except surfing the internet and the occasional app. Do you realize that since the desktop PC came out over 30 years ago that it's still the same size? It's only faster and stores more data. People like this size of computer. Computers will forever get faster while programs and video will forever get fatter and we'll need more and more space to store that information and room to cool these things down. Good luck trying to cool an over-clocked computer when there's nowhere to put a heatsink or attach some cooling hoses to your cel-phone. Full-size PC's aren't going anywhere. People love to build them, overclock them, compete with them and just generally show them off. What you said is like saying the car as we know it will disappear once Google gets their autocar 50-state legal. It's not happening. Not now and probably not ever. *edit* Oh yeah, almost forgot - about your wireless comment... Wireless will never replace hard-wired either. Ever. Wireless involves taking a signal and breaking it down so it can be transmitted and right there is your problem. A wire doesn't have to do any of that. Wireless will forever get faster but it's all based on a faster hard-wired signal that will forever be one step ahead of it. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/09/12 at 13:23:39 Yup, I think I'm that ignorant. I also think I've paid more attention to the new developments in that industry than you have. So, you can be the voice for Intel and Microsoft and I can be the voice for the future of computing. First test for my "future" is that Intel gets dumped out of Apple laptops (time: next year). Second test is that cell phones pick up the ability to run a remote screen, keyboard and mouse wirelessly from your pocket (time: two years). Third test is that an ARM OS system begins to do more of the hard stuff, gaming, graphics, CAD (time: three years). Fourth test is PC as a full sized box like we think of it today goes away pretty much completely as a new sale type item (time: 4 years). Last test is this all starts to happen quicker than I expect ... tick tock timing increases to say 8 months for each tick and for each tock. Now Cavi, what is your future like? Can you explain what the future is going to be (other than water cooled cell phones that is)? |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by greenmonster on 11/09/12 at 13:26:40 Cavi, The desktop computer will still exist in some format. I agree with that. I'm pretty sure that Oldfeller agrees with that too. Since he already stated that some programs will still require them (CADD etc). The thing is, I already know of many households who do not own a desktop PC. I'm one of them. I have laptops. Why? They do everything I need from a home computer and when not in use they aren't dominating a corner of my living space. 10 years ago, everyone I knew had a desktop PC, be they gamers or seniors. Now the seniors want a tablet they can see the grandkiddies on and the gamers are getting highend laptops that are as powerful as a desktop and far more portable. The last LAN party I was at had everyone with powerful laptops. (Actually the last one was with PS3's and we were all dragging 42-70" TV's into the place, but I digress) Overclocking and liquid cooling desktop PC's has always been something of a niche market. (I should know, I was part of it) It gives a sense of being part of the elite. That will always be around, you're right. However, it's likely that you'll have multiple low power chips running a much faster rig than one power hungry chip come the not too distant future. TL;DR version = Desktop custom PC's will still be around. Niche market smaller than electric bowties. Not in the format we currently think of them. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Cavi Mike on 11/09/12 at 16:24:48 60434B494A43434A5D2F0 wrote:
Water cooled cell-phones? Seriously? That's what you go out of my post? Anyways... I don't think anyone ever saw it coming that Intel would even be considered for making Apple processors but when the rumours went flying around, people were pretty blown away. Intel doesn't need Apple like you seem to think. Intel already has 80% of the CPU market. Something you probably didn't know. The future of computing will be pretty much exactly where it is and has been for quite some time. Intel vs AMD with the overclockers, Apple with the artists, and a bunch of little children running around playing with their shiny toys (google, android, whatever else pops up). Sure, I'd love to see ARM jump into the real PC market but I'm not ignorant enough to believe it will happen in 10 years considering ARM is already 20 years old. I'd be more apt to believe Linux would be in the market especially considering almost every major player develops drivers and whatnot to keep compatibility but alas, Linux only holds 2% of the market. I think it's you that needs to do a bit more research or maybe join a decent computer forum like http://www.overclock.net so you can keep real tabs on what's going on. Obviously you're only paying attention to the technology and not the real life points. *edit* I know what I just typed sounded like I was directly comparing ARM and Linux but I wasn't since one is obviously hardware and one is software. I was simply stating how good both are yet neither of them can get a real foothold in the real PC market. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/09/12 at 18:31:10 We shall see, now won't we? So, Cavi says that everything will stay pretty much the same, that PC boxes will always be there for you and that is what you will always want. Cavi, you are saying that the hot item for this Christmas will be a new Intel Processor desktop PC then, right? No? Then what is the hot item for this Christmas? What are people spending their tech bucks on instead of a new PC? http://liliputing.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/bis-6922.jpg This is a fanless Intel core I-7 computer, state of the art fanless technology from your Wintel computer buddies. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by verslagen1 on 11/09/12 at 18:34:26 44676F6D6E67676E790B0 wrote:
Hot new item will be about 24 arm boards hot wired into a pc box :o |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/09/12 at 18:51:11 http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2012/4/25/1335360154763/idc_changing_forecast.png http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/25/tablet-pc-market-analysis PC sales are flat, laptops are flat, tablets are rising fast ..... but look at that emerging portable GO !!! http://img.cellular-news.com/story/38286/Global_sales_of_smartphones_to_reach_310_million_units_in_2013_1.png Smart phones are continuing to ramp up and up .... What happens when a cell phone really can do the job the PC used to do? From your pocket, light your screen and take your keyboard strokes and mouse clicks. Are you going to junk your cell phone and carry your PC with you all the time? No, of course not. No, but you might consider not buying another PC since they will still cost 3-4x as much as a new superphone would cost. Phones will now pick up a wifi signal and use that in preference to using plan minutes. You can buy phones now that only use wifi and store your missed contacts until you get into range of a wifi signal. The whole thing is changing, year by year. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by verslagen1 on 11/09/12 at 19:14:12 smart phones have to ramp up yearly to replace the beta phones from the year before ;D |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/09/12 at 19:27:48 And this is coming from a guy who POSTS off his smart phone all the time. :D Every time we rode down the mountain, Verslagen would pop his phone out and check his messages and his posts ..... he's not addicted fer much. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/09/12 at 19:40:16 6F7C6B6A75787E7C7728190 wrote:
Hot new item will be about 24 arm boards hot wired into a pc box :o[/quote] http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSB1NbazH02ONr38YiplmvVUXxYlOZP2s6_Sf2Q1MTleaAdwUZl not that they haven't done that already http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/raspberry-pi-supercomputer-5.jpg My goodness, you know what they call that don't you? A working man's supercomputer. =============== http://www.linuxfordevices.com/images/stories/gumstix_stagecoach_sm.jpg What happens when you don't bust apart a whole rack of little stick PCs? Why, you have a Stagecoach board, which is 1/28th of a Stagecoach Suitcase Supercomputer. http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Sandia-StrongBox-and-Gumstix-Stagecoach/ =============== Here is an Ubuntu server rack (ARM chips) http://www.linuxfordevices.com/images/stories/ztsystems_r1801e_sm.jpg http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/ZT-Systems-R1801e-/ ================= Seriously, Caldexra and the Barcelona Project have each built a serious ARM supercomputer, they worked fine and drew less than 24% of the juice required by equivalent horsepower Intel based supercomputers. This has prompted both ARM and AMD to declare that AMD is going into in the ARM supercomputer business using the new 64 bit ARM server designs. There is potentially a BIG NEW market here as this energy costs SAVINGS in a data center would pay for the new data center in a year or so. This at least offers AMD a future, if they can survive the wolves of winter that is .... |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by verslagen1 on 11/09/12 at 20:01:05 ok, now for the hard part... find me a laptop display driver. I got this old laptop, battery crapped out so I got for free. battery cost more than a new laptop at the time. been sitting collecting dust. when I opened it up, had a mini at mother board half ht. HD I can put anything in it if i had a display driver that'll port to one of those |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by rfw2003 on 11/09/12 at 21:49:48 Now cluster computing with ARM processors I can see as a good benefit and a possible replacement for current desktop computers IF the software support is written to support it. Server wise the cluster computing software is already there, might just need a little tweaking to support the ARM arch, but for server stuff cluster support is already there. One other area that the ARM arch still needs to support that I haven't seen yet is PCI-E so that it can support hardware raid cards and more powerful Video Cards then what is available on the SOC's. As I said before to you OldFeller I'm not against the ARM's and I'm very intrigued by them and have bought a few of the hackberry boards and also just put in an order for one of the cubieboards as well since the hackberry's will end up being for the kiddo's the cubie will be my play toy since it has all the extra pin-outs for the gpio's and such where the hackberry doesn't. The cubie board also has the ability to directly drive a LCD panel via the LVDS pins on the pin-outs as well, plus alot of the other features available on the pin-outs that the A10 chip has are there as well. Now the Hackberry boards are gonna be perfect for what I have in mind for the kids, but for me really finding what the A10 can do and what is really available in most of it's features the cubie seems like the perfect board for that atm, at least from a pricing stand point. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/10/12 at 01:22:14 Yup, affordable fun. Not quite ready for pc replacement (yet) as a single A10 core. What happens when you have quad core SOCs just as readily available on gumstick sized boards though? 2 gigahertz quad core SOCs with 8 core GPUs? You do realize there are octa(8)core implementations of these same chipsets that nobody is talking about doing just yet, apart from the datacenter rack replacement boys like Caldexra who have done some as proof of concept boards. To me there is lots of potential for scaling. Some folks have bought the hard macro designs for quad core A7 and A15 and they are trying to bring them to market next year. These single chip SOCs will offer quite a bit of horsepower to a casual user like me. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by rfw2003 on 11/10/12 at 12:28:47 193A3230333A3A3324560 wrote:
Yes for casual users until they get the cluster support done and PCI-E or what ever comes after that for the higher horse power graphics engines I will agree that the progress of these little ARM arch designs are gonna eventually be a very nice and cheaper alternative to desktops where the user is only in need of something for internet, email and basic office type applications, They should also do well for some light gaming such as those that work well with the Android type OS's, Java based games, and also those that are internet based that don't rely to heavily on the clients computer for heavy graphics processing. They will also do well for doing multi-media applications as well, it would just be nice if services such as netflix would take that one additional step and make it compatible with linux which they can do since they have already ported it to work with Android. For me this is gonna be just a play toy to see what all I can find out about building on the ARM arch for linux side of things since all I've done so far is Android. Also since I went with the Cubie board for myself I'll have access to a whole lot more of the features that I can play with to see what all I can make this little thing do. I'm vary anxious to get this thing in hand so I can start playing around with it just to see what it's capable of doing. Heck it may just be the perfect thing for a project that I had planned on doing a few years ago but never got started on because I never could find the proper development board to fit the needs for the base of the project. R.F. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/10/12 at 15:07:49 http://img.hexus.net/v2/internationalevents/idf12/nuc/Board1.jpg http://liliputing.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/intel-nuc.jpg http://liliputing.com/2012/11/intels-nuc-mini-pc-coming-soon-for-about-300.html This is what Intel wants to sell you now for $300 -- a bare bones box with no power supply, no cables, no systems memory, no hard drive or data storage and interestingly enough No Operating System. And it still costs $300. Fully equipped, such a casual user system will cost a good bit over $400. The Intel system pulls 17 watts to run the processor, which is better than it has been but not down at ARM's 5-8 watts. And the ARM systems are counting all data storage devices and the power supply and all the other parts of the system in with their energy reporting as they come in the box with it or already mounted on the stick or little board. Android 4.x is the on board operating system which can be swapped out at the expense of a SD card to load your new OS of choice. A single copy of MicroChoke Win8 RT will cost about as much as the little Android stick computers currently cost (with all the bits and pieces included) .... Win x86 full version will cost even more. Come the day when these little stick PCs are running big-LITTLE with a decent core count, I still don't think the price of the finished ARM computer on a stick is going to be over $100, complete with all the needed bits and pieces. The chip prices of a mature big-LITTLE (when the next generation is rolling out, say) will be about what chips are now, since you are buying "space on the wafer and processing time" which will be quite similar "space & time" to what A10 chips take now. And this will be a smooth operating, fast little device as Linux and Android are both running well now using single core chips at a 1 megahertz level and these new big-LITTLE will be around 2 to 2.5 gigahertz on the low end of the pool by then. Don't discount the advantage of 32 bit fast light RISC code gives to ARM based products. It wasn't by chance that Apple has made their current fortune running fast light 32 bit RISC code on phones, tablets and now laptops, they have done it both ways you know and you will see them go back to 100% fast light 32 bit RISC code inside the bigger products next year. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/11/12 at 21:03:41 Back to 64 bit ARM based supercomputers and rack processors for data centers. http://technewspedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/14600_Boulder-portada.jpg http://technewspedia.com/nvidia-tesla-cgpus-future-will-be-based-in-denver/ http://technewspedia.com/boulder-the-future-microprocessor-nvidia-hpc-server/ NVIDA has now announced Boulder, which means that they are going into the supercomuter and data center business using Cortex A-57 based extensible processors. This makes AMD and NVIDA (two canny computer companies) that are saying ARM Cortex A-57 can scale up to supercomputer status and save 50%-70% of direct energy costs (to run the processors) and a whopping 80% on the cooling of the data center itself. The energy savings in the first 3 years buys all the new computer equipment. A bean-picker's delight, this will be something that PAYS for itself inside 3-4 years, plus you get environmental tax credits for doing it (decreasing carbon counts and all). A 3 year ROI means this new use of the new 64 bit ARM chips will be a very very hot topic in the data center, and remarkably easy to implement since most data centers run on Linux anyway. With these sorts of compelling energy savings Intel MUST respond in this data center arena as they currently own the data center business. This business is as large as the desktop PC business when thought of as a "number of chips sold" market share. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/14/12 at 08:01:00 Back to APPLE for the future pathway news .... http://www.cultofmac.com/191388/apples-chip-roadmap-quad-core-a6x-in-2013-64-bit-a7-in-time-for-2014/ Remember, APPLE has exclusivity agreements with ARM that says APPLE gets the new stuff a full year before anybody else sees it. This is bad enough by itself, but what is making things worse is that early in that "first peek" year APPLE is running around signing up all the production capacity out there at the new required lower nanometer levels. APPLE actually produces these new chips for most of a year to get enough of them to do a major roll out of a new technology level "event". They have to have enough product in the barn to sell MILLIONS of units on roll out day, much less the 10's of millions in the weeks following. And occasionally APPLE does run short of their new chipsets, but not very often any more. The only folks who can break this early production lock out are the ones with their own very modern fab plants that also have extra capacity past their production contracts with APPLE. For example, Samsung is making the current APPLE S6 chipset, so right now APPLE and Samsung (Exynos) are the only ones shipping A-15 dual cores with everybody else who is shipping a A-15 product is having to us the Exynos dual core A-15 chipset. Why is this? ARM, well bribed by APPLE's lust for the latest and greatest has only released the new designs at the very lowest nanometer levels that APPLE can just barely reach. The rest of the fab plants are struggling to meet the existing demand for larger nanometer chips and have not converted anything much to the 28 nanometer level required by A-15. Some have stared their conversions, but chip capacity at 28 nanometer is going to be scarce through the rest of this year. 20 nm? Scarcer than hen's teeth .... Another thing is the release of the 64 bit A-57 at 20 nanometers. If I were a fab plant getting ready to dump 3.2 BILLION dollars into a new fab capacity, it would now have to be a new 20 nanometer or better type process, not a 28 nanometer process that I would have to ramp up into and out of inside one year. So, by the "unplanned" 1 year early release of A-57 designs, ARM and APPLE have created strong turmoil in the business plans of lots of the phone space chip supplying companies. For example, TI is backing away from the race now, having just finished upgrading to something that is 1 generation back at this point in time. They just spent a whole lot of money for ..... nothing, no competitive advantage at all. When their A-15 comes out it will be an also ran, competing against Exynos chips that have been shipping for months and months. A-15 and A-7 are now likely going to be skipped over by a lot of Far Eastern companies as they are attuned to the business well enough to see that they need to buy in as far in the future as they can. They may honor existing contracts and buy the A-7 and A-15s that they already contracted for, but any free money they get will now be invested further forward. A-15 and A-7 will also likely get skipped over by the knowledgeable phone and tablet based retail customers as they know the 64 bit chipsets are one year away from being in their hot little hands. So, there currently isn't enough 28 nanometer fab capacity out there and no fab plant with a brain would be putting money into any brand new production capacity unless it was 20 nanometer or better. Sneaky, huh? Apple and Samsung get to own the A-15 wave for free whilst everyone else is chasing the 2 year in the future target that has just been posted up on the board. APPLE will still roll into 20 nanometer A-57 on time, driven by TSCM's brand new, totally filled & contracted 20nm processes that APPLE helped them to buy. Samsung isn't supplying APPLE with their spare capacity of A-57, TSCM is. Apple has also bought their own 20nm and better production lines that will be coming on board soon. Phone space is going to be fragmented by this skipped generation of chips, some will be competing low end price-wise with quad core A-9 chipsets (at 40 nm) because that is the very best thing available at that production nanometer level. AMD and NVIDA have now swung their bats at the 64 bit A-57 server market, as these chips will pull in enough money to make the investment worth their time. This further distracts the phone space world, as a brand new whole untapped market just plopped in their laps and it has higher profit margins to boot, too .... Look at Google, sold out through Christmas on their new phone, their new 10 tablet and their new Chrome OS laptop all due to not enough 28 nanometer production capacity to carry the load that people are putting on the 28 nm production system. Apple avoids this error by locking up enough production capacity early on and producing enough chips in their "lead year" to do their main roll out event and subsequent sales. Christmas will be an odd mix this year, with the tech goodies shipping with single core A-8s, dual and quad core A-9s and dual core A-15s all at the same time produced at four different nm levels. Next year will be no better, with 40 nm quad core A-9s holding the low end, 28nm quad core A-7s, dual and quad core 28nm A-15s (some will be big-LITTLE combo packs) with a smattering of the new 20nm A-57 64 bit chips on the high end of things. Year after that, folks will quit buying anything that isn't 64 bit (assuming the 64 bit ARM supporting OS versions come out in a timely fashion). People are like that at the switch over from 32 to 64 bit on computer stuff, I am typing on a PC right now that was bought at the last PC 32 to 64 bit switch over point. :) |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/14/12 at 15:56:25 http://liliputing.com/2012/11/texas-instruments-to-eliminate-1700-jobs-in-shift-away-from-smartphone-chips.html I mentioned the fact Texas Instruments has stopped their chase in the cell phone arena. TI is a cell phone chip maker who just spent billions on getting to their OMAP 5 Cortex A-15 28 nanometer chipsets, now the game has moved to 20 nanometer inside the same year that they just now became competitive. TI has just said "screw this" and are going to use the 28nm process they just bought to make embedded product boards and chipsets for the embedded market, basically saying they are good in that market with what they have for the near future any way. Margins are higher in embedded than in the phone market anyway (much smaller market though). Downsizing the cell phone and tablet design and marketing groups (1,700 jobs) will help take the sting out of being "too late to market" again in the cell phone world. :P Ouch .... We keep saying the phone market is relentless and it moves VERY fast, but TI, AMD and Intel are showing that they can't keep up in the most basic ways possible, by stalling, quitting & or moving out of the market. And APPLE and ARM are cooperating in ways that make it very hard for anyone to stay up with APPLE, including APPLE's chip supplying partners. APPLE changes out partners with each new wave of ARM chips, one producing now while the other frantically tools up for his turn in the barrel next year. |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/22/12 at 20:57:00 http://www.extremetech.com/computing/139455-cortex-a57-takes-arm-to-64-bit-will-enter-the-server-room-in-2014 I've brought up the point that A53 & A57 got short stroked into next year by Apple and Arm, sorta upsetting the apple carts of quite a few of the other players. The circle denotes where we are right now. http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ARM-Cortex-A50-Series-640x353.jpg This article helps explain why this move was seen as "necessary" by ARM. The 64 bit addressing opened up the server realms, allowed AMD to hop into the hot tub and prevented Intel from having their neat new Bay Trail rabbit out of the hat be anything other than "oh, Intel is trying to do one too". Trying to claim your new dual core 22nm atom chip is "hot stuff" is tough to do inside a whole crowd of yet hotter octacore 20nm & 28nm ARM chips with better graphics. Takes the wind right out of a marketing campaign, it does .... This might teach Intel that the "early classic vaporwear" release of the first thought of a new product like it was a real product, the sort of stuff that Wintel did for so many years, actually puts the ARM world inside their reaction time space for rolling out a real competing/beating product. :D http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ARM-Cortex-A57-SoCs-connected-via-CCN-504-640x457.jpg In late 2013 the very fastest chips will all be the new 20 nanometer 64 bit chips, but the popular Christmas tablets, Chromebooks and such will be the very top end of the A15 28nm era, the octa-core (4 A-15, 4 A-7) Samsungs, etc. with Mali 678 (12 core) graphics. Watch those graphics cores, they can do computation duties also ..... (APPLE's favorite trick) This is one buss slot of a 64 bit ARM rack server by Calexda http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Calxeda-EnergyCard-640x425.jpg |
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Title: Re: ARM Cortex A50 series 64 bit chips Post by Oldfeller on 11/25/12 at 21:52:16 http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/why-might-apple-move-macs-to-arm-processors/ Interesting article that explains several things I once KNEW but had forgotten in the intervening years. ARM was a consortium formed in 1990 by several early NON-INTEL companies to design RISC chips. Acorn, VLSI Technology, and Apple were the first three and IBM joined up for a while when Apple was heavy into IBM's PowerPC chip systems. APPLE ALREADY OWNS ~40% of ARM, from just about the very beginning .... Is this a controlling share, technically no, but it could be if APPLE wanted it to be as ARM is publicly traded and for a few hundred million the necessary 11% could be purchased. Can APPLE swing ARM around at will? Seems so, as this last "bring A-57 forward by 2-3 years" is an amazing scheduling leap which will benefit APPLE and ARM at the detriment of several other players such as Texas Instrument. Will APPLE dump Intel by 2014? Planning seems to be available to do so, since A-57 64 bit designs already exist for 8 and 16 core 64 bit server chips that would swing Mali 678 12 core graphics .... 3 times denser/faster than the Retina display is today. (all of which would be somewhat over kill in an individual PC I would think but it would still nice marketing-wise as APPLE does love their big "latest and greatest" introductions, now don't they?) Why plunk an overkill 8 to 16 core ARM A-57 server SOC into an APPLE desktop pc? PURE LOWER COST is the answer. Even at APPLE's best price from Intel a good Intel desktop chip BY ITSELF costs over $150 while even a super duper octacore A-57 will cost $50-$60 even if APPLE has to buy it as overproduction from TSCM or Samsung or AMD instead of using their own home built production process. Plus, with the ARM SOC you get your graphics baked in with it on the SOC. Intel requires a third party video system which costs more than $50-$60 all by itself. And now that we know who already owns 40% of ARM, APPLE's ability to get the good stuff a year or so early makes even more sense. Now, what could ARM do to pacify the folks who are going to lose years of A-15/A-7 big little run time because of their little gimmick schedule move with APPLE? Well, for good will they could give them the A-57/A-53 designs for the price difference between what they paid for the A-15 stuff they will never get to run and the current license price for the new stuff that was just rolled forward. If they don't do this voluntarily, a court will wind up making them do it anyway as reasonable damages, but if they force a court to do it there will be NO goodwill involved, just a big black eye. ======================= BTW news is that the Bay Trail chip, the newly named Intel "rabbit out of the hat" chip for mid 2013 is a high performance high power draw dual core ATOM chipset that is supposed to make APPLE want to stay with Intel. ....... really, how is that again ????? High performance high power draw dual core ATOM vs low power draw HIGHER PERFORMANCE quad core, hepta core or octacore or higher ARM SERVER SOC with 12 core graphics already on it that we already own 40% of and just bought processes to build it internally AND have backed up our play with TSCM, AMD and Samsung lining them up as backup producers. |
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