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Darpa Funds Development of New Type of Processor

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Re: Darpa Funds Development of New Type of Processor

#52
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturing logic on the same wafer as DRAM is difficult since the processes are so different. On the other hand, manufacturing on separate dies and connecting with an interposer or TSVs gets you tremendous bandwidth and relatively low latency; this is how some newer generation graphics memory is implemented (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Bandwidth_Memory ).

CPU logic on DRAM process is apparently a solved problem: http://venraytechnology.com/Implementations.htm

You can make logic on a DRAM process, but either your logic will be slow or you'll have to increase the cost of your cost/power consumption of your DRAM cells. With separate chips connected with TSVs you can have your cake and eat it too (each process can be specialized for it's components) plus you get the added benefit of increased yields (chips are smaller, no special processing steps).

Re: Darpa Funds Development of New Type of Processor

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they missed including a pie chart and a gantt chart for good measure.

Most of the industry has moved on to Deep Pie Charts.

FYI, they're called 'chicago charts' for those in the know...

Re: Darpa Funds Development of New Type of Processor

#54
post #48

Can't wait for this publicly funded research to make some private corporation billions!

No way; this is the kind of thing that can become a state-secret level advantage. Seriously, it's a graph processor. Graph analysis is basically the entire job of a modern intelligence agency. There's a cold-war level arms race going on in cybersecurity. Russia embarrassed us with their sophisticated cyberwarfare capability in the last election -- they were able to infiltrate both campaigns AND the FBI (they used fal…

> they used false information to manipulate Comey into making a statement -- which required them to know how conflicted he was over interference in the Clinton e-mail thing

Sidenote: Comey strongly implied (damn near said it really) in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday that this did not actually happen and the news articles were way off. Makes you wonder what did actually happen.

Re: Darpa Funds Development of New Type of Processor

#56
post #48

Can't wait for this publicly funded research to make some private corporation billions!

No way; this is the kind of thing that can become a state-secret level advantage. Seriously, it's a graph processor. Graph analysis is basically the entire job of a modern intelligence agency. There's a cold-war level arms race going on in cybersecurity. Russia embarrassed us with their sophisticated cyberwarfare capability in the last election -- they were able to infiltrate both campaigns AND the FBI (they used fal…

> they used false information to manipulate Comey into making a statement -- which required them to know how conflicted he was over interference in the Clinton e-mail thing

Source?

Re: Darpa Funds Development of New Type of Processor

#57

Can't wait for this publicly funded research to make some private corporation billions!

You mean like the internet? Or self driving cars?

The original ARPANET was a proof of concept of a network which could withstand the failure multiple simultaneous nodes, that is, survive a nuclear strike. Whether knowing you have a robust command and control network makes you more or less likely to use your own nuclear weapons in a first strike is arguable. But it did guarantee a second strike would be possible (which if you believe MAD, made the world safer.) And robust second-strike capability, in the end, is about killing people.

Re: Darpa Funds Development of New Type of Processor

#58
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way; this is the kind of thing that can become a state-secret level advantage. Seriously, it's a graph processor. Graph analysis is basically the entire job of a modern intelligence agency. There's a cold-war level arms race going on in cybersecurity. Russia embarrassed us with their sophisticated cyberwarfare capability in the last election -- they were able to infiltrate both campaigns AND the FBI (they used fal…

> they used false information to manipulate Comey into making a statement -- which required them to know how conflicted he was over interference in the Clinton e-mail thing Sidenote: Comey strongly implied (damn near said it really) in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday that this did not actually happen and the news articles were way off. Makes you wonder what did actually happen.

If it did happen, would it be in his interest to admit it?

Re: Darpa Funds Development of New Type of Processor

#59

Graph processing machines are not new. The signal-to-noise ratio of this article is so low that I can't tell how this architecture differs from e.g. the Cray Eldorado. Or the Connection Machine for that matter.

There is a real use-case here that has become so widespread and common in the intelligence and law enforcement community that they saw utility in having a processor optimized for graph analysis. They likely see some uses for it outside of that market as well which is why both Intel and Qualcomm are interested in working on it. Even if it is a variation on 'Threadstorm' it's still optimized for this particular type of data processing.

I read the whole article and I don't see anywhere in this claiming it is a new idea. But certainly there is no other processor on the market like this one. So it fits the category of "new type of processor", even if it's for a dedicated use-case - just like those ML optimized processors.

There's a big difference between knowing it is theoretically possible and the value you get from a real world implementation with real users. That sounds pretty news worthy to me.

Re: Darpa Funds Development of New Type of Processor

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they used false information to manipulate Comey into making a statement -- which required them to know how conflicted he was over interference in the Clinton e-mail thing Sidenote: Comey strongly implied (damn near said it really) in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday that this did not actually happen and the news articles were way off. Makes you wonder what did actually happen.

If it did happen, would it be in his interest to admit it?

Would he even know it (without the Russians coming out and saying so)?
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