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General Category >> The Cafe >> "SEA OF CORES" now in current A-15/A-7
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Message started by Oldfeller on 01/31/14 at 08:14:57

Title: "SEA OF CORES" now in current A-15/A-7
Post by Oldfeller on 01/31/14 at 08:14:57

http://liliputing.com/2014/01/samsung-galaxy-note-3-neo-6-cpu-cores-and-a-pen.html

The hexa-core chip pairs two 1.7 GHz ARM Cortex-A15 CPU cores with four 1.3 GHz ARM Cortex-A7 CPU cores. The lower-power processor cores can handle most daily activities and the Cortex-A15 components kick in when you need a performance boost.

ARM has had an issue with the orientals NOT keeping pace with the ARM generational roll out plan. The orientals are actively avoiding new licensing costs by sticking with an old ARM generation until every last bit of goodie is wrung out from it.

Then the orientals HAVE to buy another expensive ARM license for something newer, and they always try to leapfrog as far ahead as they can find large production volume on the smallest lithography process they can find (or buy into).

This is slowed leapfrog stuff is dangerous to ARM because Intel is coming and the generations must roll quickly to stay ahead of slow poky Intel, who is beginning to move a little quicker of late.

ARM let Rockchip have the A-12 chipset as an interim step but that effort seems to be stalled at the word GO right now -- and Rockchip got screwed over because their competitors then leapfrogged right over the A12 generation completely by going Octa core A15 on them.

So, Rockchip is all stuck now, still pushing out their supercharged RK3188 quad core A-9 chipset. I wonder if the A-12 will ever hit production this year at all as it has been leapfrogged. I bet they tweek the A-9 some more performance-wise rather than spend all the money to complete ARM's hastily cobbled together A-12 generation.

So what IS ARM going to do? They can't lay out a plan because the orientals simply won't follow the game plan (whatever it is) and insist on doing just what they want to do whenever they want to go do it.

Samsung plays ball though, so ARM will now let Samsung pilot a new interim move for them. ARM will now let Samsung do the "sea of cores" thing with the current A-7/A-15 generation, letting them mix and match odd core counts while enabling all cores to be used simultaneously when needed.

Supercharging again, this time from ARM itself .... reliable and standardized.

So, here you go, extreme energy efficiency with high performance, but only when you need it. Works on the commonly available 28nm lines and also works at 20nm when you have some production time on the newer lines to run the stuff on them.

Now, this is a good idea and it will get adopted soon and by everybody.

Here is the BAD NEWS for ARM though, this newly released "sea of cores" tech will allow the orientals to stick with the current A-15 generation at 28/20nm for at least another full year -- they can simply go on mixing and matching cores for their exact product needs for at least that long. It will be cheaper to add a pair of cores than buy a new license.

Intel may have time to actually figure out how to design a real phone chip at 14nm if you keep on stringing the A15 generation along for that long a period of time.

===================

So, the ARM chipsets are PLENTY POWERFUL ENOUGH right now, but the lack of the broad range full functional ARM OS all that is holding things back. Certainly, next year the power and efficiency levels will be off the current charts and there will be an absolute crying need for an ARM general OS.

Linaro and the Linux Kernel guys need to step forward and put some "bios like" standards out there that allow the multitude of hardware out there to interact sensibly with the operating system so the software guys can pull together a true general purpose ARM OS or two or three.

;D You know there will be more than one choice out there once the hardware interface can be rationalized, that is all that is stopping it from happening now.

Title: Re: "SEA OF CORES" available now in current
Post by verslagen1 on 01/31/14 at 08:32:24

ARM needs to let the consumer dictate the road to world domination rather than them.
Providing the cheapest product for the masses and a superior product for the elitist trend following Mr. Jones.
As long as 1 factory can put out the top end product, ARM gets title for the best anyway. And with all the other factories putting out a cheap product, they can capture market share.

Kinda like NASCAR, you can't have the 500hp camry, but it's there.

Title: Re: "SEA OF CORES" available now in current
Post by Oldfeller on 01/31/14 at 08:43:40

Using the Nascar analogy, it is kinda like ARM has a plan for generations of better engines, but the little flat track guys keep supercharging and turbocharging and nitrous kitting the old flathead iron straight sixes rather than buying into the new more powerful engines.

Hell of it is the little dirt track guys are winning an occasional local race or two with their tricks. So everybody keeps on doing it.

Problem with that is that the electronic ignition and computer systems guys can't keep up with all these one off custom hot rods -- can't get the Ignition Commander software to work right with all the crazy odd stuff that is out there ....

;)

Title: Re: "SEA OF CORES" now in current A-15/A-7
Post by verslagen1 on 01/31/14 at 09:10:13

If the sub ARM wackers don't provide the patches and tweaks... then the masses won't buy their product... unless it's real cheap.

Title: Re: "SEA OF CORES" now in current A-15/A
Post by Oldfeller on 01/31/14 at 10:42:29

The cheapie chinese guys have a habit of installing a cobbled together, modded version of the current Android and that's it, no updates are available for the device ever. The root customer for the cheapie guys is China itself, with English being an option language pasted on top of the product stack.

On the higher end of ARM, Google Nexus and some Samsung devices do get updated regularly. This is because it is "base stock android" with Samsung only doing modifications that they will keep up with and update about yearly.

Still, for ARM to take off as a mainstream laptop/desktop, the general OS writing people need some consistency in what they are going to be dealing with --- a bios of some sort --- because nobody is going to write to the mess of hardware that exists out there until it has a bios type interface level to write to.

Chaos is OK if you are preparing a throw away device that will never be updated or changed. The ARM world is taking too long to develop standards .... so this will stop them from moving upscale until they do.

==============

What is threatening to happen now is Intel is beginning to MOVE, finally. Chipzlla sat on their dime until they began to bleed out of their ears and now that Wall Street finally began to discount their stock they are finally lifting their feet.

Now Chipzilla is moving finally, clumsily, massively just like the old radioactive movie lizard used to do.

A REALLY BIG LIZARD though, and if it gets all pissed off it might jest breathe on you ....

Think of that huge wafer filled to the brim with 14nm phone chips, a chip that is a collage of the best ideas of the ARM designs for speed and energy and X86 compatibility added to it. Toss in some Snapdragon Krait core type integration and it could be a very appealing mix.

Intel could do that you know, they are an ARM design level licensee. The only thing that stops them is their pride. They know their phone chip design team sucks right now, but they haven't even hired anybody away from Qualcomm to fix that yet.

===================

By blows of the first big lizard moves have been some tablet chipsets that were really too big and clumsy for the tablet job. But they were a good bump improvement on the existing laptop chipsets and they are very quickly are taking over in that job.