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Intel Shows 2.5D FPGA at ISSCC

eetimes.com

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Re: Intel Shows 2.5D FPGA at ISSCC

#111

Post by ianderf »

leonroy wrote: post #51
oliwarner wrote: post #43

Getting a bit bored of leaks, press releases and even specs. The proof of a CPU is in how it benchmarks across real workloads. We're 2-3 weeks away from global release. People buying components NOW are exactly the sort of people AMD should be working their socks off to stop buying Intel parts. But instead of any firm performance figures, we have rumour. The only reason I can imagine AMD is still keeping the press und…

I think the issue might more be related to yields and distribution. Even when AMD were outpacing Intel (many years back) they struggled to meet demand and manufacture enough chips. There was a great article back then too about why Apple and Dell weren't going all in on AMD chips and whilst sweeteners from Intel is part of it, a lot of it had to do with Dell or Apple's typical volume far outpacing what AMD could relia…

> There was a great article back then too about why Apple and Dell weren't going all in on AMD chips

Because Intel paid them to not use AMD chips.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/184323-intel-stuck-wit...

Re: Intel Shows 2.5D FPGA at ISSCC

#112

Post by gpderetta »

snovv_crash wrote: post #57
chx wrote: post #6

There's a lot that goes into CPU performance. Go to http://wccftech.com/ryzen-smaller-die-intel-zen-architecture... and search for "Table courtesy of the Linley Group" without quotes to see an extremely interesting table: http://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Zen-Doubl... > Intel has a double precision IPC of 16 FLOPs per Clock with Skylake as well as 2x 256 bit FMA whereas Zen only has 8 FLOPs per clock…

Skylake might have 2x 256 bit FMA, but it still only has 1x 256 bit non-fused add, the same as Zen.

you can of course use the FMA as an add unit (with a slightly longer latency). IIRC Kabylake has the same latency (4 cycles) and throughput (2 * 256 bits) for add, mul and mad.

Re: Intel Shows 2.5D FPGA at ISSCC

#113

Post by eumoria »

etimberg wrote: post #80
listic wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does i7 6900K have to do with FPGA?

Looks like this thread has the wrong comments or a mod changed the link. Originally this was an article about upcoming AMD CPUs

Thank you this was confusing the hell out of me. FPGA looks like a beast though

Re: Intel Shows 2.5D FPGA at ISSCC

#114

Post by mastax »

kogepathic wrote: post #54
leonroy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue might more be related to yields and distribution. Even when AMD were outpacing Intel (many years back) they struggled to meet demand and manufacture enough chips. There was a great article back then too about why Apple and Dell weren't going all in on AMD chips and whilst sweeteners from Intel is part of it, a lot of it had to do with Dell or Apple's typical volume far outpacing what AMD could relia…

> they struggled to meet demand and manufacture enough chips. I would think, and hope, that the situation is better now. Back then, AMD was manufacturing their chips in house, now they're manufactured by GlobalFoundries and TSMC.

The situation is better except for the protection money AMD has to pay GloFo:

"This flexibility comes at a cost though. Not unlike past years where AMD has paid GlobalFoundries a penalty under take-or-pay, AMD will be paying the foundry for this new flexibility. GlobalFoundries will be receiving a $100M payment from AMD, spread out over the next 4 quarters. Meanwhile starting in 2017, AMD will also have to pay GlobalFoundries for wafers they buy from third-party foundries. This in particular is a notable change from past agreements, as AMD has never paid a penalty before in this fashion. Ultimately this means AMD could end up paying GlobalFoundries two different types of penalties: one for making a chip at another fab, and a second penalty if AMD doesn’t make their wafer target for the year with GlobalFoundries."

"Along with all of the above, in exchange for the latest agreement AMD is making one more payment in the form of a stock warrant...The warrant will give Mubadala the option to buy up to 75 million AMD shares at a currently below-market price of $5.98/share, so long as they continue to own less than 20% of AMD. AMD is valuing the warrant at $235 million, which will bring the total one-time-costs of the latest agreement to $335M."

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10631/amd-amends-globalfoundri...

So Globalfoundries was behind Intel, Samsung and TSMC on 14nm, and they have chronic yield problems which made it hard for AMD to compete. I understand that most contracts for large orders have lots of stipulations and minimum purchase agreements but this agreement seems unwise. Why tie your entire business to one fab when their fortunes change year by year and being early can be such a competitive advantage? Moving between fabs is a huge amount of work yes, but now they have to do that work to get on TSMC and also pay Glofo for the privilege.

Re: Intel Shows 2.5D FPGA at ISSCC

#115

Post by Groxx »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #95
Groxx wrote: post #2

Link seems to go to " Intel Shows 2.5D FPGA at ISSCC " instead? edit: oh, derp. nevermind. there's a second page: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331317&page_numb... edit edit: so apparently page 2 can't be linked to. whatever. bottom of the article content has a "next page" link.

Your link takes me to page 2. Running Chrome with uBlock Origin; not sure why you're being redirected to page 1.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it seems to be working now. maybe strange cookies / site bugs / who-knows-what.

Re: Intel Shows 2.5D FPGA at ISSCC

#116

Post by nrclark »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #99
pjc50 wrote: post #93

I'm slightly confused why everyone's talking about CPUs and ignoring the FPGA! Anyway, it's an interesting technique. An extension of chip-on-module packaging where instead of having a circuit board made of FR4 you have a tiny PCB made of multilayer silicon. This allows fast connections between chips made with different processes (CPU/DRAM/Flash are somewhat incompatible), and joining small chips together into large…

Can you ELI5 how putting an FPGA on a cisc die will ultimately improve performance? Does it affect both multi core and single core benchmarks?

Adding an FPGA onto a desktop CPU probably doesn't speed up any existing benchmark tests, but it does have a lot of potential.

At an ELI5 level, FPGAs are reconfigurable blocks of digital logic gates. So a CPU-connected chunk of FPGA fabric could be reconfigured on-the-fly to create task-specific CPU instructions.

A smart C compiler might be able to detect an ultra-common 16-instruction block of code and synthesize it into FPGA logic (effectively collapsing it down to a single instruction as far as the CPU is concerned).

edit: as pjc50 points out, Intel isn't making any FPGA/x86-64 hybrids just yet. But I'd bet good money that they're on Intel's roadmap after the Altera aquisition.

Re: Intel Shows 2.5D FPGA at ISSCC

#117

Post by oliwarner »

DannyBee wrote: post #73
oliwarner wrote: post #43

Getting a bit bored of leaks, press releases and even specs. The proof of a CPU is in how it benchmarks across real workloads. We're 2-3 weeks away from global release. People buying components NOW are exactly the sort of people AMD should be working their socks off to stop buying Intel parts. But instead of any firm performance figures, we have rumour. The only reason I can imagine AMD is still keeping the press und…

"People buying components NOW are exactly the sort of people AMD should be working their socks off to stop buying Intel parts." Err, for the people that matter, they probably are. I'm not sure why you would think otherwise. Certainly you realize their large purchasers vastly dwarf people frequenting tech sites. They 100% have done benchmarking/testing with, say, their top N chip purchasers, well before now, and alrea…

They're the people they should have been taking to months before release. And in all likelihood, they were.

We're at the pointy end, now.

Re: Intel Shows 2.5D FPGA at ISSCC

#118

Post by DannyBee »

smueller1234 wrote: post #105
DannyBee wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People buying components NOW are exactly the sort of people AMD should be working their socks off to stop buying Intel parts." Err, for the people that matter, they probably are. I'm not sure why you would think otherwise. Certainly you realize their large purchasers vastly dwarf people frequenting tech sites. They 100% have done benchmarking/testing with, say, their top N chip purchasers, well before now, and alrea…

Nitpick: I'd like to point out that there's significant overlap between the two groups. To wit, I read hardware sites (from the realworldtech forum to anandtech and friends) and I've made 8 digit server hardware investment choices for work. This being said, the actual product focus between a typical core i7...K review and the mid range Xeons we've been purchasing are obviously not the same despite the similarity in a…

"Nitpick: I'd like to point out that there's significant overlap between the two groups."

Maybe. Maybe not. But in any case, none of the 8 digit purchasers i know care about when the review shows up on anandtech :)

Re: Intel Shows 2.5D FPGA at ISSCC

#119

Post by flukus »

agumonkey wrote: post #46
oliwarner wrote: post #43

Getting a bit bored of leaks, press releases and even specs. The proof of a CPU is in how it benchmarks across real workloads. We're 2-3 weeks away from global release. People buying components NOW are exactly the sort of people AMD should be working their socks off to stop buying Intel parts. But instead of any firm performance figures, we have rumour. The only reason I can imagine AMD is still keeping the press und…

You don't trust the presentation demo AMD made a few weeks ago ?

No. I trust independent comparisons a lot more than I would ever trust the company making the product.

Re: Intel Shows 2.5D FPGA at ISSCC

#120

Post by untoreh »

flukus wrote: post #119
agumonkey wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't trust the presentation demo AMD made a few weeks ago ?

No. I trust independent comparisons a lot more than I would ever trust the company making the product.

I think the benchmarks shown by amd can be trusted. But they are very very cherry picked, example the demonstration they did when they released the rx480
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