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How ARM got so successful without the public really noticing

theguardian.com

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Re: How ARM got so successful without the public really noticing

#51

Post by scholia »

Zigurd wrote: post #23
kogepathic wrote: post #2

> Hands up who knows which company designed the iPhone 6s’ 64-bit chip Apple did. It's been widely acknowledged that the processor inside the iPhone is a custom design which implements the ARMv8 ISA. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A9 > Furber and his co-designer, Sophie Wilson, had found research from the Berkeley campus of the University of California into a new type of processor: one that simplified the s…

There is also an interesting story of the way they were propelled to success, pre-smartphone. I think it went something like Apple needed a chip for the Newton. That begat ARM as an Acorn spin-off. Then Nokia picked it up for GSM phones that needed a proper CPU. Nokia would have been enough to take ARM to a billion unit per year before iPhone. Apple has strict power requirements, and Nokia provided continued focus on…

> I think it went something like Apple needed a chip for the Newton. That begat ARM as an Acorn spin-off.

That's correct: the spin-off from Acorn was part of the deal with Apple (done by John Sculley).

However, ARM had three investors: Acorn, Apple and chip company VLSI Technology Inc (VTI).

Re: How ARM got so successful without the public really noticing

#53

Post by digi_owl »

diqu wrote: post #39
TeMPOraL wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, it's not something the GenPop will know or care about. From their POV, it's a product issue - this tablet does or does not run some software. It's easy to paper over 99% of those differences by... writing new software. I mean, people don't complain that iPad doesn't run vanilla MS Office.

Which boils down to the old "consumers view computers as black boxes" argument. The question is whether we should care about that or not, and whether the pain of not being able to run GenPop's favorite software grows too big. Being locked into the respective device's app store hides that pain to a degree. And whenever it becomes noticable, GenPop rather considers switching to a different vendor than considering the t…

Thats because the computer as a mix of hardware and software is something fairly new. The home/personal computer didn't really happen until the 80s. Before then every device had a defined purpose, and if there was any software it was living as "firmware" inside the hardware.

Damn it, i still recall when people got hot and bothered about getting updates for their Nokia Series 40 phones over the air. Before than you only got it done if it was obviously broken, and to do so you brought it to the service desk of a nearby store or some such.

Re: How ARM got so successful without the public really noticing

#54

Post by digi_owl »

simula67 wrote: post #47
fit2rule wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was neck and neck, in my opinion. In the UK, ARM ruled, but in the US, the MIPS Magnum series were well received and widely used. MIPS had a chance to be an ARM, but it was squandered.

> MIPS had a chance to be an ARM, but it was squandered. I have always wondered how ARM succeeded when MIPS was already around. Anyone know ?

Just guessing, but it could have something to do with ARM not doing actual hardware. Instead they license either chip designs or the ISA to anyone willing to pay.

In a way it is reminiscent of the z80 clones that was all over the place in the 80s.

Re: How ARM got so successful without the public really noticing

#55

Post by scholia »

dogma1138 wrote: post #20
RockyMcNuts wrote: post #10

With Intel skipping a 'tick' and fabs like Samsung and TSMC catching up in process, ARM-based CPUs are competitive in performance with the low end of Intel's desktop lines up to Core i5 - and use less power. There seems to be a window for ARM to make inroads into servers, in addition to low-end laptops like Chromebooks. The trend of mobile devices replacing desktops for more and more tasks (> 50% of emails read on mo…

ARM CPU's aren't really comparable to anything above the Intel's ATOM line in terms of benchmark performance, and raw real world applications still give x86 based CPU's a huge advantage. http://www.computingcompendium.com/p/arm-vs-intel-benchmarks... http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_te... Allot of the "performance" of most of these SOC's actually comes from the GPU/DSP portion of the SOC rath…

> Keep in mind that in 2007-2008 Intel was very seriously considering licensing ARM and other technologies to compete in the ultra portable and mobile markets and we are all better off that it didn't do so.

Actually, Intel sold a range of ARM chips from 1998-2006. It gained the DEC StrongARM design team when Compaq bought DEC and Compaq didn't want it. Intel then sold the XScale range of ARM chips, before deciding that x86-compatibility was the right way to go. That decision led to the Atom range.

Intel sold its ARM operation to Marvel for $600 million.

Intel still has an architecture license so it can design ARM chips if it wants.

Re: How ARM got so successful without the public really noticing

#56

Post by scholia »

timthorn wrote: post #26
randomsearch wrote: post #3

Can anyone explain why ARM have not been bought by Intel, MS, Apple or Google yet?

Apple did have a very significant stake in ARM - 20% from memory. It has been argued that the investment saved Apple, as they were able to sell the shares for a significant return at a time when Apple was struggling financially.

Pretty sure, from memory, that the ARM holding company was originally 40% Acorn, 40% Apple and 20% VLSI Technology Inc (VTI).

Acorn used VLSI Technology's software tools to develop the first ARM chip, and VLSI made it.

Re: How ARM got so successful without the public really noticing

#57

Post by digi_owl »

leonroy wrote: post #9

Another related British company which has become very successful without anyone noticing is Imagination Technologies (formerly Videologic). They had a successful graphics card business during the 90s but with the introduction of 3D graphics accelerators their product (PowerVR) whilst semi-successful began to struggle against 3dfx and nVidia's TNT and Geforce range of graphics cards. Eventually they pulled out of the…

PowerVR was a interesting product, much like the 3dfx comeptition, it was a "pass-through" design in that it only did the 3D part and you needed a video card alongside it to get anything else.

The difference between PowerVR and 3dfx was that while the latter used a a short VGA cable that went from the video card to the 3dfx card, and then you plugged the screen into the 3dfx, the PowerVR passed everything around on the PCI bus (very similar to what Nvidia Optimus is doing on laptops).

But then Nvidia came to market with the TNT series that did everything on a single board, and they could do it in 32-bit while 3dfx was limited to 16-bit, and ATI got involved where before they had only done 2D stuff.

BTW, 3dfx introduced SLI to the gaming world. This while still using the physical pass through VGA cable. Made for quite the cable salad.

Re: How ARM got so successful without the public really noticing

#58

Post by rwmj »

dogma1138 wrote: post #40
rwmj wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The X-Gene 1 was a development platform designed to work out the software bugs (and it's also obsolete now, since it was first produced in 40nm in 2013). Obviously if you compare latest Intel SoC with some 2+ year old dev-kit, the latest Intel looks great! They should compare Xeon with Cavium ThunderX, X-Gene 2/3, AMD Seattle, Qualcomm's latest server SoC or the HiSilicon D0x. http://www.hotchips.org/wp-content/uploa…

Well the Xeon-D 1540 sits just below the E5 in most benchmarks, unfortunately I can't conjure benchmarks out of think air, but you don't seem to be able to do so either (but for all accounts Cavium isn't shipping anything yet, all i could find are press releases that some one said they'll be building servers based on their SOC bot nothing else). I wasn't comparing anything, anantech was they compared an available Int…

Delusional?? 12 billion ARM processors were sold in 2014. Intel sold 400 million. I wouldn't bet against those volumes if ARM partners become serious about the server market. It's quite clear that 64 bit ARM processors are good enough to use for some servers, with some very high end offerings coming along soon as I've posted about in other comments. Disruptive innovations happen from below.

Sources: https://atlas.qz.com/charts/Ek18VmbP http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-02-04/arm-chips-ar...

Re: How ARM got so successful without the public really noticing

#59

Post by aaronbrethorst »

acomjean wrote: post #12
ThePhysicist wrote: post #5

I think "without anyone really noticing" should really mean "without anyone in the general public really noticing". Competitors and people working in the chip industry have probably been well aware of the ARM architecture and its rise for a long time. In addition, some factors that are responsible for the huge success of this architecture have probably been historical accidents as well, in the sense that a different…

The market noticed. Nice steady increase. Symbol: ARMH https://www.google.com/finance?cid=662445

ARMH is only now back to their 2000 internet bubble highs.

Re: How ARM got so successful without the public really noticing

#60

Post by ddingus »

I'm a fan of ARM for it's power / performance characteristics, and for the market competition it's bringing for Intel. (who needs it)

One concern I have is the overall expectations on ARM are more locked down than Intel. Look at Microsoft and it's ARM Tablet. Locked down, Win 8 App Store only. Android is largely locked down, unless you jailbreak, or get a development / standalone PC board or system.

The more prominent ARM devices do not offer the flexibility and openness your average Intel PC does.

Legacy software is a big part of what I see as keeping that door open. This latest round of Intel PC's is notable for the lack of documentation and or options to configure them to boot other things. [1] Not like it can't be done, but it's painfully obvious the only reason it can be done is the vendor left the option there.

They don't have to, and I get the feeling nobody really does want to. They just feel it makes sense right now for legacy software reasons. At some point, that equation will change...

[1] - Case in point, a recent HP consumer grade laptop. Got it, and it had Windows 8 on it, which at the time didn't make any sense for the use case it was purchased for. There was no meaningful documentation on how to enter the BIOS to set "LEGACY" mode. I literally poked around on the keys, until I found it. Scary. The idea of, "they didn't even have to provide that" hit home right then.

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