SuzukiSavage.com /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> The Cafe >> A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1373387254 Message started by Oldfeller on 07/09/13 at 09:27:33

Title: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by Oldfeller on 07/09/13 at 09:27:33 20nm ARM-based chips to hit 3 GHz in 2014 http://liliputing.com/2013/07/20nm-arm-based-chips-to-hit-3-ghz-in-2014.html Nobody responds to Intel's vaporware introductions very much any more, so after a week of a very few PC pundits saying that Intel is staging a come back with their 2ghz quad core 22nm chipsets and all that sort of stuff the two top dog ARM chip producers co-released a very simple statement. Lithography size is now 18-20nm.  Processor speed per core to start at 2.8 ghz and to go up to 3.x (they haven't pushed it yet).   Energy use to drop 25% from where it is are now.   "Sea of cores" technology is built into the designs.   64 and 32 bit support is built in now (either per core, and you can do both at the same time on separate cores).   Linaro has released the supporting changes to the Linux kernel, implemented in 3.7 and updated twice already. They also backed it with individual personal verbal statements that the new line's run offs have been completed and the production samples are in the hands of the various vendors since 1-2 months ago.   ARM is referred to as being happy that "the speeds achieved slightly exceeded their predictions".   TSMC is suspected to be the culprit for that advance at a 18nm production size, which logically should do better than Global's 20nm production samples.   Both production lines are real and have been sampled and it is suspected are in production for somebody's top secret Christmas timeline surprise at this point in time. As you read this, remember it refers to the A-53 and A-57 and the AMD 64 bit server chipset series which will all be the first things produced on these lines at 18-20nm.  These are the very first of the 64 bit ARM chipset designs.   The new 64bits will demand a premium price, while the old 28nm lines keep churning out existing designs at an ever lower cost. ================ So, what will really happen?     Progress shall come along in little waves interspersed with much bigger waves.    Mobile and battery powered devices will continue to get replaced as they roll through upgrade periods and software based obsolescences. My old white box will continue to run its old (and now very obsolete) Linux Mint 9.0 with no updates until either the monitor dies or the CPU box dies. NEXT ITEM OF NOTE:     ARM will soon release the designs of what comes after A-53 and A-57.    Look for more of a generic sea of cores approach with more attention paid to a VERY FAST, energy tight & physically very small littles --  with much less push on the bulky powerful energy sucking bigs that nobody seems to be actually using for very much right now.   Look for the bigs to start to become a "compilation on die" of 4-8 littles with a much better on-die GPU chip.   Hard Macro designs will come out much more frequent and will be closely aimed at known niche needs in the current cell phone space.   Remember, ARM very much wants to keep Intel out at the sidelines where they can go play with Microsoft until they both become pretty much irrelevant.   If they leave holes or unmet needs -- Intel will get in.   Intel will get faster off the bat and more nimble, they have to. Why mostly littles?   Sea of cores technology at 64 bit can substitute in the little cores at will for the same processing power as could be supplied by some fewer number of big cores (but the much lower wafer yield rates and much greater complexity make the bigs too much more expensive to make, so more & more littles will start to rule completely).

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by justin_o_guy2 on 07/09/13 at 16:55:16 Lithography size is now 18-20nm amazing,,

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by Pine on 07/10/13 at 06:28:39 I tried talking a retired IBM'r about all this. He was in sales, mostly S36 and bigger iron. Except for the ARM is basically the old RISC .. most of it went "swhoose" over his head. I do hope Intel/ AMD have advanced plans. There are bonds out for railroads up to 2050... yeah they failed to realize they are in the transportation business.. not just rail.

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by Oldfeller on 07/10/13 at 06:44:55 What makes this interesting to me was the technology progress driven by cell phone world over lapping the PC world completely. Right now you can buy a handheld Samsung Exnos octa core chipset (that beats the processing power of a half ton Cray III supercomputer) or with a handheld Sony octa (made by little guy Mediatek) coming out soon that can make the same claims.  All current generation chipsets are 28nm with next year open production of the 20nm stuff and the 64 bit changeover to start to take place starting late this year. In your pocket, you can have and use that much computing power.   My new cell phone (my first Android superphone ever) isn't top of the line by any means, yet I can talk text into it quicker than I can type it in on a keyboard.   I have me a Garmin in my pocket too, better actually than my old Garmin used to be.  I have internet, Netflix and games that I carry with me all the time as I walk around doing my job.   I could literally "live" off my phone if I had to. If you have ever played Angry Birds Space and you have any mathematical bent to you, you quickly realize that your cell phone is calculating all the pretty displays and simultaneously calculating the orbit math for up to 50 items at the same time.  Nothing NASA ever sent to the moon could do that, period.   Not even close. People bitche that Android phone games are light duty, but the newer ones ARE NOT that light duty at all. Tablet games are quite complex now, and getting more so. Steam on Android -- think about it.   Every game you ever played, available in your hand if you want it bad enough to pay the monthly $$. Hell, just ask Google, there is likely a freeware version of your favorite game out there right now if you will just go look for it.

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by Pine on 07/10/13 at 09:14:40 Speak of that NASA and moon business.. I was wondering last year, imagine all the area in a space craft or even a commericial jet air liner covered dials, gauges, and switches. Now, replace all those .. ALL of them with touch screen technology. Each 2*2 gauge becomes an icon maybe .5"* .5" .. if its green its ok.. if its red, it needs attention.. press it and you get your 2*2' gauge.. and switches.  A summary panel stays up most of the time... really who needs to look at a gauge that is within system norms? Maybe a real-time graph.. showing not what IS... but what was and how its changed over time. Touchscreen fails...pfft . unplug it and pop in another. No need for redundant gauges... sensors maybe... but not gauges.   I understand that the space shuttle had 11 on-board computers. The computers would take a "vote" .. a poll. Any one computer could "down-vote" a launch. Pretty cool way to do things... Eleven cell phones could do it now.

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by verslagen1 on 07/10/13 at 09:37:12 not to down play current advances in technology... but space bound computers can take an EMI hit that would turn these devices into a puddle and still function. this is why those computers are so behind the times... testing, armoring, retesting, more armor plate, more testing... I love the smell of burnt hair in the morning.   :-?

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by Oldfeller on 07/10/13 at 09:43:48 3E2127203D3A0B3B0B33212D66540 wrote: Lithography size is now 18-20nm amazing,, Justin, my "new" phone is a Galaxy S3 built at the old 38 nanometer size and mine is actually an older dual core Snapdragon design to be more anal & precise about it.  It runs plenty good enough for me, anyway. Same chip "footprint space" next year will hold a octa-core A53 with a much much better graphics core and a much higher definition screen.   Battery will last twice as long too.   A win-win-win for me all the way ....   (Allwinner's trademarked trick, that) Yup, it will all get a lot better by the time I am due to roll into a new cell phone. ;)

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by verslagen1 on 07/10/13 at 11:06:35 I did get a couple of the Hisense 7" pro tablets from wally. It's like using a huge iphone, graphics are great, gps works well. voice is 50/50 so far important has been done with it.

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by Oldfeller on 07/12/13 at 13:31:32 If memory serves, those tablets were very much like a Nexus 7 in features, but only cost $149. Here is what $140 (outright buy, no 2 year plan) will buy for you now in a quad core cell phone. http://liliputing.com/2013/07/blu-dash-unlocked-quad-core-android-phone-for-140.html http://liliputing.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/blu-dash.jpg And for your curiosity and interest -- remember the Ubuntu phones that were making a stir several months ago (but it was all pie in the sky stuff, you using your cell phone in a docking station as your PC.)   Sorta silly, wasn't it -- it could never work, huh?    ::) Lookie who is considering buying themselves into some sky pie ....   our old sim card-less buddies at Verizon. Verizon can smell the coffee jest a coming up at them from the cheapie Chinese guys.   All the Chinese phones have a sim card slot or two  so they can be vendor locked/simmed and/or total memory bumped at will. :o Verizon joins Ubuntu advisory group: Ubuntu Phone OS coming to America? http://liliputing.com/2013/07/verizon-joins-ubuntu-advisory-group-ubuntu-phone-os-coming-to-america.html http://liliputing.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ubuntu-phone-os_01.jpg The old cell phone world was used to using Steve Jobs as a spark plug to get the changes a'going -- now a certain South African space Shuttleworth traveler is looking to fill that empty cell phone world "change instigator" position. Certainly his visionary Shuttleworth type changes will have a much better price tag on them than Job's changes used to have .... ;)

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by verslagen1 on 07/12/13 at 13:42:50 Now if they can make a micro sd chip with the cell phone network in it...

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by Oldfeller on 07/13/13 at 12:04:53 Yup, that would be nice.   So would a cell phone that stored all your memory consuming stuff up in the cloud, that allowed you to shut off your data plan and operate strictly off of your normal high speed wifi access that you DO already have at home and at work so you could minimized your use of expensive data plan minutes. These were "Shuttleworth type" open source dreamer dreams and they got actually built by a few open sourcer dreamers (they build a wifi phone) and the ideas got added to the Linux Kernel.  Their special wifi only phone didn't go anywhere for very much here in the USA, but the idea did work out well overseas. Here is the real worth of Shuttleworth and the open source dreamers -- my Galaxy SIII which is a two-three year old design just pulled in an Android upgrade right before I bought mine on $100 sale at Verizon.   Guess what neat little trick my phone does natively with one click on a setup window click box?   Yup, that wifi only access Shuttleworth dreamer's trick that the dreamers developed and proved out and got put into the kernel so ANYBODY can use it that wants to.  Including Samsung as it turns out.   Samsung calls it a "feature" and really, it is a "feature" to somebody who didn't know where it came from. Yup, my daughter spotted the feature while she was perusing phone sites looking for the "best phone".   She realized a Verizon bottom end minimalistic family plan with only a minimal 2 gig of data plan minutes could be stretched way way way far using that trick.  So, she talked us all into getting Galaxy S3 phones so we could share this dreamer knowledge on how to get the phone to work for us well as most of our phone time and data swapping is still spent between Grandmama, Momma and Daughter (and the rest of the family, some of which have dropped Apple and learned the Galaxy S3 trick). As default, we leave "plan data" turned off.  We turn "plan data" on when we are on the road or out of town, the rest of the time we run strictly off our local wifi access.   We still get updates, text, messages, voicemail, etc etc and I can't tell the difference in function between being on "wifi" and "on data plan".   Me, I am waiting for the feature to get smart, so you don't have to switch it on and off yourself manually. We got us 5 people sharing one 2 gigabyte data minute basic low end family plan.   The plan has unlimited text and phone within the family plan group anyway, so that works out well for us.   Just remember to leave "data plan" turned off as a default condition. ============= I likes them Shuttleworth open source dreamers, I do.   They have some really good ideas that they dream up.    The price is right on them dreams, too. Microsoft and Apple, they don't have any dreams any more that don't have big assed dollar signs attached to them.   Shame that. Low dollar dreams are what America needs more of right now.

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by Oldfeller on 07/15/13 at 04:14:02 "Low dollar dreams are what America needs more of right now." Stuff sorta like this, except even better featured at a lower than $99 price tag ..... Notice they are actually calling them Linux destops now, because they come with an Ubuntu OS preloaded (or you get a link to a tuned OS for you to put on the SD card). This has got to gripe 'ol Intel's butt some as the words "PC" is something that Intel thinks that they they own, but this entire box complete costs less than any of the current Intel chipsets does all by itself.   Utilite ARM-based Linux computer coming in August for $99 and up http://utilite-computer.com/web/home http://liliputing.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ut_01.jpg Still, somebody had to go start the ball rolling.   Compulabs has done that already, this is their third "ARM based linux PC" that they are currently selling.   Google is selling two now so that makes like 5-6 ARM based PCs you can buy now with non-MS OS systems. Still waiting to see a major brand name to do this, or to actually see one at Best Buy ..... What is sad is that you may see one at Verizon much quicker than you will see one at Best Buy (Intel and Microsoft still do the nasty arm twisting thing to their major vendors). You may see an Ubuntu cell phone in a loading dock do it earlier, too. But still, you will see it eventually.    A good minimum buy in point would be a quad core with a naturally supported Ubuntu version (not hand tweeked by the vendor).  Ubuntu looks to be the benchmark for hardware support right now as they post a list of what they will keep up with year to year. Why naturally Ubuntu supported?   Hardware vendors from the far east don't last forever (and neither does their support) and mainstream Linux gets updated every two years right now, major stable to major stable. Unless a linux distro says they will support the hardware for the next XX years, don't buy into it -- you are buying frustration for yourself on down the road.

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by Oldfeller on 07/16/13 at 07:44:29 Microsoft made the tech news pages again ..... Microsoft Surface RT gets a global price cut (was originally $1,200 now costs about $350) http://liliputing.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/surface-rt_01.jpg ;D Question becomes "Can they actually sell any in Europe at that price?"    Aren't the Europeans swift enough to figure out you plan on selling them the keyboard separately for about the same price yet again? Second question becomes "How many American customers is this move going to hack off since you left the price way up high inside the USA ????" Oh, so you think American consumers are that stupid and you are spending millions on ads saying your piece of shite Surface RT tablets are really great stuff so as to BS them??   And you think all the high school geeky boy kids are gonna have Mommy buy them one so pimply 'ol sonny boy can be in with them purty blond good lookin' in crowd girls and them "neat" boy toy kids that are shown in the MS Surface ads? Get real, actual kids are wired in tight now days -- they are much much tougher to fool than their parents. Every prepubescent  knows that the neat kids use 100% Apple products.   The not so neat kids use Nexus, Asus and Samsung products (in that order). You think your young potential customers are stupid, or what? Nobody but the geek squad use MS products, and who wants to be a boy geek and to always be getting their shorts yanked up all the time? :o     Yheeeeeee !!!  Aieeee !!!    (drops tablet and clutches at his crotch)   Ohmyballsohmyballsohmyballsohmyballstheyhurtsooobad ..... ========== Help !!!   Help !!!  Somebody let me out of my locker !!!   Please, please -- let me out !!! Teach, them in-crowd boys have got my MSR Surface RT and they are down in the atrium playing a game of hall hocky with it !!!

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by Oldfeller on 07/16/13 at 17:36:31 More hard news (for Intel, anyway) .... ARM and TSMC tape out 64-bit chip on 16-nm FinFET process by Geoff Gasior — 12:30 PM on July 12, 2013 An important milestone has been reached on the path to next-generation SoCs. According to EE Times, ARM and TSMC have completed the first tape-out of a Cortex-A57 processor on TSMC's 16-nm FinFET process. The Cortex-A57 is a 64-bit CPU based on the new ARMv8 architecture, while the fabrication process is TSMC's first to employ "3D" transistors similar to those in Intel's current 22-nm tech. ARM and TSMC have been working together since last summer, when they announced a partnership to build 64-bit ARM processors using FinFET technology. This initial tape-out is for a test chip rather than a finished product, so don't expect 16-nm SoCs to be flying off the production line anytime soon. In a TSMC press release, Vice President of R&D Cliff Hou claims the tape-out "demonstrates that the next-generation ARMv8 processor is FinFET-ready for TSMC’s advanced technology." That should at least give potential licensees some confidence in TSMC's ability to churn out chips based on ARM's 64-bit hotness. The EE Times article says an ARM spokesperson noted that "Cortex-A57 power-performance-area trade-offs will not be finalized until further in the collaboration." That said, TSMC reportedly expects its 16-nm FinFET process to enable a 40% increase in performance over the foundry's 28-nm process. ARM is also working with GlobalFoundries on FinFET chips. We learned in February that GloFo's first implementation of non-planar transistors will be in its 14-nm process, and that an ARM Cortex-A9 CPU core has already been used as a test vehicle for that process. GloFo's 14-nm process purportedly offers a 61% performance improvement over the foundry's super-low-power 28-nm process. Hey, I was jest joking about the Chinese cheapie guys doing an Octa-core A9, but if they can really reduce power >50% and get a 61% performance boost from doing 14nm with Global Foundry, heck, the A-9 might jest live on a few more years .... What we have here are people working out production processes for the next generation of ARM chipset products, the generation that comes AFTER the A-53 & A-57 generation.   The one that is due to be announced sometimes fairly soon, if things roll out like they have in years past.   ARM will tailor the product construction specs to the TSCM and General Foundary processes that the make it folks have show that they can reliably do.   ARM has no vaporware, they only deal in what can really be done.    They prove all their new product stuff out in top secret and then release the actual product designs to suit what can be done at a decent reliable process yield.   That is how they can guarantee a hard macro design to somebody like Samsung, they have already produced it on the new TSCM process line so they have yield data and gate leakage data and you name it data. Right now them clever folks have to figure out new USB standards for the future generation (past A-53) chipsets as these new generation chips will all run at 1.2 volts rather than the  5 volts which is where the USB standard is stuck at right now.   So, we needs us a new USB standard and a few other new thingamabops we do ..... Hey, we are talking a cell phone 3-4 years from now that runs off a single battery cell ....   1.2 volts. :-? That is amazing to me, really it is.     Lots of progress still out there to make ..... shame 'ol Intel might not be Chipzilla Rex any more by then unless they get to seriously shak'n and bake'n sometimes soon. Vaporware ain't going to cut it when your competitors come out with REAL PRODUCTS twice as quick as you can --- they tend to lap on past you unless you start moving faster.

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by old_rider on 07/17/13 at 09:48:27 Thanks for the Utilite link, very interesting, seen some similar modules when a couple of gamers about ten years ago decided laptops were not capable of playing their games and pc's were to dang big to take with you on the bus/plane/boat, so they were building small boxes like these. I looked at a lot of the present setups on the utilite site, but it looks like they don't come with hard drives just "slots" to add 2.5" disk drives and you still have to buy a monitor, keyboard and mouse to use them. A link on the Utilite site sends you to amazon for their current products and most of them are just as expensive as laptops are and you still have to buy keyboard/monitor/mouse, so pricewise these units are not budget friendly.....yet.... If their new Utilite unit comes with a 500 or 600 gig hard drive and not a blank slot, and still keeps the $99 price tag, I might get one to see what its all about because I still have a couple monitors and keyboards laying about. Not trying to start a war mind you just taking in all the info being put out here in the net. I recently bout a new laptop 17" hp pavilion/w 8gig ram, 500gig hd, amd quad-core A10, radeon graphics, with DVD installed (some don't have that feature with new windows) for only $578 at wallyworld. So far i'm happy with it.

Title: Re: A response to Intel's wave of vaporware ..... Post by Oldfeller on 07/17/13 at 10:13:43 "Right now them clever folks have to figure out new USB standards for the future generation (past A-53) chipsets as these new generation chips will all run at 1.2 volts rather than the  5 volts which is where the USB standard is stuck at right now." I was curious as to who the bright folks were who were going to do this standards development for a new USB standard, etc.   This isn't something you think of third tier supplier type people in Taiwan and China as doing for the rest of the world. So I went looking for the brains behind it all .....  who is the brain trust behind ARM product development that is good enough to send Chipzilla off packing to the showers in defeat, time after time after time no less? Then I remembered, who were the original owners of the ACORN consortium that turned into ARM?   The company was founded as Advanced RISC Machines, ARM, a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and VLSI Technology. Logically Apple has a hand in the pie, but they don't make real breakthroughs in hard science for much, Apple takes advantage of what other people invent, by and large. So I went to lookin' for far future type development work associated with ARM. Apple Signs TSMC For 16nm and 10nm Nodes June 24, 2013 "According to DigiTimes, Apple has signed up TSMC for the finfet nodes – 16nm and 10nm –  which succeed the 20nm planar process. DigiTimes says that TSMC will have enough capacity to run 50,000 20nm wafers a month in Q1 2014 and that volume production of Apple processors on 20nm will start in December. TSMC has stated that 16nm production will start one year after 20nm planar – and 20nm planar started risk production in Q1 2013. Next month, small-scale production of Apple processors will start at TSMC." OK, Apple and TSMC are obviously players in the brain trust. New Technologies "As part of its strategy, GlobalFoundries continues to expand and accelerate its foundry offerings.  Within its new 300mm fab in New York, the company has begun ramping the plant for 28nm and 20nm technology. In 2013, the New York fab will be capable of running 30,000 wafers a month. At some point, the fab will capable of running 50,000 wafers a month. Meanwhile, in September, GlobalFoundries rolled out its finFET technology for the 14nm node. GlobalFoundries is taking a “modular fin” approach with its bulk finFET offering, dubbed 14nm-XM. The 14nm-XM combines a 14nm-class fin with its 20nm back-end-of-line (BEOL) interconnect flow. By taking the modular approach, the company has accelerated its process roadmap by a year. Early process design kits (PDKs) are available, with customer product tape-outs expected in 2013. Production, which is slated for 2014, will take place within GlobalFoundries’ new 300mm fab in New York. Then, in October, rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) updated and accelerated its process roadmap. The world’s largest silicon foundry has accelerated its 16nm finFET efforts by one quarter and added a 10nm finFET technology to the roadmap. TSMC’s 10nm finFET process, dubbed CLN10FF, is expected to move into risk production close to the end of 2015. GlobalFoundries moved to keep pace with TSMC. At IEDM, GlobalFoundries disclosed a 10nm finFET process, which is due out in 2015, or a year after 14nm finFET.  “We have accelerated (the 10nm finFET process),” Manocha said after his keynote at IEDM. At 10nm, GlobalFoundries and others may be forced to extend 193nm immersion, while also going with a multiple patterning scheme. EUV is late to the party and may miss the 10nm node. “10nm will be optical,” he said. “We have evidence that we can do 7nm with immersion.” Global Foundaries is in the brain trust, too. Then I hit this little nugget that explains a lot about exactly whose brains are driving what ....   "Collaboration at 28nm, 20nm and 14nm: IBM, Cadence, ARM, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Samsung" http://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/1349-collaboration-28nm-20nm-14nm-ibm-cadence-arm-globalfoundries-samsung So, IBM and Cadence enter the role list of brain trust holders. So, when you consider that some of these experts have moved recently from other companies, you might just throw "more of" IBM, Intel and HP into the brain trust that is currently driving ARM product development.   They might not intend to be, but they are there. ARM never works alone, they always team up with the actual producer of the chipsets and the actual makers of the finished products.   ARM never vaporwares because they chase no rabbit but the ones that all three of the interested parties fully knows is workable. If you buy into an ARM hard macro design, you get a guarantee from ARM.  ARM knows it will work at the advertised speed and yield rates because they have already DONE IT in full production on real production lines.     ARM sample chips always seem to pan out good for that very same reason.  ARM doesn't stand alone in making up those specs, the folks who make the chips and the ones who used it first had a hand in creating those "expectations".    If you design a product around some ARM sample chips, it works that way in production very reliably. Because of this cooperative development style and by working so closely with Linaro (Linux) and the other standards bodies ARM has the edge in anything new, as far as getting it right and getting it done much faster. Chipzilla and Microsoft just don't do that -- they try to tell the standards people what they are going to do after the fact. They treat their major customers the same way. Then they twist their arms and screw with them when their customers try to make something else with somebody else's chips or operating system.

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