Random question: where did the ARM core design come from?
originally the MOS Technology 6502 :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family#Histor...
it's an interesting article
Intel Foundry demonstrates first Arm-based chip on 18a node
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Re: Intel Foundry demonstrates first Arm-based chip on 18a node
#42Very unlikely to happen but Intel could release an Arm chip with native x86 translation. Arm and AMD IP would be needed but this would be the best chip for Windows
I don't understand what the difference is between "an ARM chip with native x86 translation" and a dual-ISA x86 and ARM chip. And I don't understand why you'd want a dual-ISA x86 and ARM rather than just an x86 chip. You wouldn't get whatever CPU front-end simplicity advantages there are from ARM, since your front-end would get significantly more complex and consume significantly more transistors than with a normal x8…
I wonder if ARM instructions could be translated to Intel’s uOps. Then everything except that translation could be shared. And, since programs consist entirely of one type of instruction for the most part, we could imagine that the chip should be able to stick to just doing one type of translation for the duration of a program run, rather than having to figure it out for each instruction.
I’m not saying I want this, but it might be surprisingly not totally impractical.
Re: Intel Foundry demonstrates first Arm-based chip on 18a node
#43why only apple and Nvidia are left buying from foundries. is the market for cpu/gpu that bad? zero innovation and other players even in niche markets?
Have you heard of AMD? You know... the company with about 25% of CPU market share (at least in PCs) these days?
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/amds-desktop...
They have 17% overall according to this chart which includes Apple.
https://www.accio.com/business/best-selling-cpus
Read up on this young startup, as I think they are going places!
Re: Intel Foundry demonstrates first Arm-based chip on 18a node
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Specially companies like Nvidia for which the gross profit margin is so high their risk of losing TSMC is higher than risk of losing money.
Apple is similarly paranoid about single-sourcing -- off the top of my head I'm not sure whether their top-end M-class chips are currently fabbed by both TSMC and Samsung, or just TSMC>
Because if there was only a single source (for example if the other one was out-competed), they'd have to pay 30% of their revenue for the privilege of being in the FabStore.
Re: Intel Foundry demonstrates first Arm-based chip on 18a node
#45Re: Intel Foundry demonstrates first Arm-based chip on 18a node
#46Random question: where did the ARM core design come from?
Intel are believed to hold an Arm architectural license [1] as far as I know, they have made Arm-based things in the past. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family#Archit...
If they didn’t have one already they would have presumably acquired one when they bought Altera - they had SoC FPGAs that have ARM cores hooked up to an FPGA fabric.
They have since spun off Altera but I imagine they’d still have a license.
Re: Intel Foundry demonstrates first Arm-based chip on 18a node
#47> Intel is effectively saying "Hey, we can make Arm chips!"
Makes sense since they were once popular in the NUC space and Apple has shown high-end ARM has a market.
Re: Intel Foundry demonstrates first Arm-based chip on 18a node
#48It should be RISC-V... who is in charge at Intel?? Is this related to the rumors of softbank (ARM) money injection in Intel?
I don't think Intel plans to make a product, but to prove they can build a working chip that's not one of their own design. Being ARM has fewer developmental risks than a RISC-V design and make validation easier.
Re: Intel Foundry demonstrates first Arm-based chip on 18a node
#49Assuming they’re telling the truth, they’ve successfully built one chip from that fab. That’s good, but it doesn’t mean the fab is capable of manufacturing at scale while turning a profit. They need an external customer for the fab so they can iterate and work out the issues. It’s anyone’s guess if someone trusts intel to manufacture on their behalf instead of sticking with an established player. They’re stuck in a c…
This is common in industry. You often do give a discount and guarantees to the first users of a system to compensate for the risk the customer is taking.
Re: Intel Foundry demonstrates first Arm-based chip on 18a node
#50Assuming they’re telling the truth, they’ve successfully built one chip from that fab. That’s good, but it doesn’t mean the fab is capable of manufacturing at scale while turning a profit. They need an external customer for the fab so they can iterate and work out the issues. It’s anyone’s guess if someone trusts intel to manufacture on their behalf instead of sticking with an established player. They’re stuck in a c…
This is common in industry. You often do give a discount and guarantees to the first users of a system to compensate for the risk the customer is taking.
This is part of how DigitalOcean got going, Kingston gave a huge discount on a traditional HDD order if the order was switched to SSD instead because they wanted to kickstart scaled manufacturing. First time an SSD was put in and the IOPS was measured, the product direction was clear, at the time we thought it might be a CDN tho, but eventually landed on a "cloud hosting provider".