Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft Azure Inference for Cloud Apps 365 Pro Live Series X
... For Workgroups
64-bit for Extended 64-bit systems.
The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
201–210 of 282 posts
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#202> The Azure Cobalt CPU, named after the blue pigment, is a 128-core chip that’s built on an Arm Neoverse CSS design and customized for Microsoft.
> Microsoft is currently testing its Cobalt CPU on workloads like Microsoft Teams and SQL server,
Teams is so bloated it needs its own 128-core CPU to run well. /s
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's insanely hard. TSMC is so dominant because they have very, very, deep institutional knowledge. Even if you have billions to invest it's not easy to create that, and definitely impossible to do it short term. There's only 3 companies left chasing smaller nodes. Everyone else has given up and are focusing on revenue from high volume parts in older processes.
The only three are Samsung, Intel, and TSMC. Idk why going on with Intel but Samsung should BSs doing better but that institutional knowledge that TSMC has is crazy. They all technically invest in asml that makes the machines. If I had to redo my education I’d get into electrical engineering just for this.
Eh, the process engineers I've talked to don't have a great life, at least here in the US. It seems inevitable you end up perpetually on call for some machine, and I don't mean some type of machine, I mean unit #23 over in fab #4 and then that's your baby for years. The pay is considerable worse than software too.
I almost went to get a CE degree because I find it all so fascinating but ultimately I'm glad I didn't.
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
The USA would certainly bomb it if they had to
TSMC fabs have bombs build in to destroy everything if PROC invades I've read.
That's a bit hyperbolic don't you think? Sure, they're the only game in town when it comes to the leading edge nodes (eg. 3nm), but there's plenty of options at 14 nm and above. That corresponds to AMD zen (released in 2017) and Intel skylake (released in 2015). They're significantly worse than the latest and greatest CPUs today, but they're still in use today. I'd hardly call that as "going back to the stone age".
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#205Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I’d get into electrical engineering just for this I get the impression it's mostly physics guys.
Everything is physics when you get down to the fundamentals.
> Everything is physics when you get down to the fundamentals.
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/435/
TLDR: Math is not. :-)
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
TSMC is solving some of the hardest physics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and other kinds of engineering I don't even know about. It's unlikely anyone catches up to them in terms of lithography ability for a long, long time given how well they've executed 45nm and lower nodes.
More like ASML is solving the physics problems and TSMC is the one with the most capital and experience to run their EUV machines. It’s not that other competitors don’t exist, it’s more like they’ve given up or can’t keep up. Global foundations I believe isn’t making the investment past 16nm. Samsungs latest node doesn’t perform as good as TSMC and intel is being intel.
> Global foundations I believe isn’t making the investment past 16nm.
GlobalFoundries' Fab 1 can do 1 nm, and its Fab 8 is capable of doing 14 nm:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=GlobalFoundries&o...
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#208Note that Microsoft has been using "custom chips" for years; they've just been on FPGAs not ASICs. They've developed IP to accelerate a whole bunch of processes, so it's not like they've suddenly come around to a magic sauce that Amazon and Google have been doing this whole time. It would surprise me if over half of the new chip is just based on RTL from their FPGA design. The only thing that's changed is that they'r…
MS has offered FPGAs for years. AFAIK they aren't generally using them themselves, although I'd be interested to read otherwise.
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why doesn't anyone enter? It takes billions and billions of dollars, tons of knowledge and if you get it wrong...even Intel screwed it up, and they are one of the only companies would could even try to do it.
> It takes billions and billions of dollars Apple and Microsoft are trillion dollar companies ( both nearing $3 trillion market caps ). They can afford it. Heck they have the balance sheet to acquire both tsmc and samsung if either were up for sale. I thought Apple was moving towards being a full-stack company. Where all the hardware and software is developed in-house. If anyone has the resources, it is apple.
> I thought Apple was moving towards being a full-stack company. Where all the hardware and software is developed in-house. If anyone has the resources, it is apple.
Having a modern chip fab binds an insane amount of capital, and makes you much more vulnerable in case of market turbulences. This is exactly a reason why there exist people who like to claim that Intel should spin off their fabs.
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#210Note that Microsoft has been using "custom chips" for years; they've just been on FPGAs not ASICs. They've developed IP to accelerate a whole bunch of processes, so it's not like they've suddenly come around to a magic sauce that Amazon and Google have been doing this whole time. It would surprise me if over half of the new chip is just based on RTL from their FPGA design. The only thing that's changed is that they'r…
MS has offered FPGAs for years. AFAIK they aren't generally using them themselves, although I'd be interested to read otherwise.
Azure networking has been FPGA-based for years.