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TingLu
Why those ARM licensees, such as Qualcomm, TI, Marvell, and nVidia, are so ...
docdivakar
I believe the marketable benefits of GPU's will mostly come from the multicore ...
Nvidia: ARM smartphones will bury x86 PCs
Rick Merritt
9/23/2010 3:19 PM EDT
SAN JOSE, Calif. – ARM will triumph over Intel as smartphones and tablets disrupt the x86 PC industry, said Jen-Hsun Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, speaking at the company's annual conference.
"It's a foregone conclusion that the personal computer of the future is this size," said Huang, holding up his smartphone. "You could add wireless HDMI to it someday, and it could also be your set-top box," he said in a fireside chat at the event.
"The PC of the future will be made by new OEMs, sold through new distributors and use a new instruction-set architecture," Huang said. "ARM will be the most important CPU architecture of the future, and it already is the fastest growing processor architecture," he added.
Nvidia has been selling an ARM-based chip called Tegra for mobile consumer devices. It has won design wins in the Microsoft Zune, but not appeared in any tablet or tier-one smartphones to date.
Huang would not comment on whether any Tegra-based tablets will emerge before the end of the year. However, he did say "Motorola, Samsung and LG are very important to us and will represent long term some of our biggest customers if we are successful."
Asked about Nvidia's relationship with x86 giant Intel, Huang quipped, "we're trying to have a lesser one."
The two companies have been locked in legal disputes over technology licensing.
Both Intel and Advanced Micro Devices will launch families of processors next year using x86 cores and their own internally designed graphics cores. Some analysts say those chips will wipe out the market for low-end discrete graphics chips, but a market for high-end discrete graphics chips is expected to remain robust.
With its core PC business threatened by the upcoming hybrid chips, Nvidia is trying to develop markets for its Tegra chips in mobile systems. In addition, it is using its conference primarily to develop so-called GPU computing markets for its Tesla processors across a wide variety of high performance vertical markets.
Nvidia rolled out to mixed reviews its first Tesla chip, called Fermi, at its inaugural conference last year. This year it said it will release in the second half of 2011 a next generation, called Kepler, made in a 28nm process and is working on a follow-on chip called Maxwell. The company provided few details on those chips.
"This is the year when apps delivered for GPU computing go to production," said Huang in his talk.
The market is accelerating the adoption to parallel programming tools such as Nvidia's CUDA environment, Huang said.
"We are doing n more fundamental computer science than we have done in a long time," Huang said. "I don’t remember in the past 30 years this much change being about to happen," he added.
CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has driven Nvidia into mobile and vertical markets as Intel and AMD prepare processors using x86 and graphics cores.
"They have picked the right strategy" with GPU computing, said Jon Peddie, principal of market watcher Jon Peddie Research (Tiburon, Calif.).
The GPU computing market is still small but could grow exponentially, Peddie said. He estimated the industry will ship in 2010 about 150,000 of the high-end graphics chips used in specialty computing markets, well below the estimated 12 million graphics chips a quarter Nvidia alone now ships to PCs.
However, Peddie cautioned that it's hard even for companies such as Nvidia to track which of its chips wind up in high-end graphics computing applications.
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eewiz
9/23/2010 4:30 PM EDT
I guess everyone is pretty confident that 10-20 years from now, the main computing device used by a person will be his handheld/tablet(where ARM has have an upperhand) instead of a laptop/desktop. But again the computing model is shifting to a thinclient - Cloudserver model, And x86 based servers are getting popular. So I dont think x86 PCs will be totally buried. Further, with OS like Android, which is not tightly linked to CPU architecture, MIPS/x86 CPUs also have a chance at capturing the new market.
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KB3001
9/23/2010 4:54 PM EDT
It is understandable for NVidia to claim that ARM will bury X86 PCs as Intel/AMD are both launching X86 processors with graphics cores wich could well bury their main market segment :-) The reality is that the jury is still out and Intel is far from being buried...
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Warren
9/23/2010 6:14 PM EDT
I believe he predicted the demise of DELL, HP, and IBM (all "old" OEM's)and not just Intel. Let's hear JHH say he wants a "lesser relationship" with those three and see how things go for big green.
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Duane Benson
9/23/2010 6:24 PM EDT
Intel is diving straight at the new generations of high-performance ARM processors with the Atom. I think it's a pretty safe bet that in a decade or so the desktop as we know it will be relegated to specialized applications and ultra high-performance niches.
Whether the next broad-based consumer/office compute platform will be a tablet or a smart phone is still up in the air. Tablets are pretty handy, but they don't fit in your pocket. A smart phone that wirelessly connects to whatever display and input device you might want to use, and can still be used stand-alone, will be able to cover a substantial percentage of generic computing needs.
One of the gating factors in my mind is the future of operating systems. OSs have bloated to fill the available processing capacity since forever. If that trend continues, the big high-powered personal computer will live on. If on the other hand, OS bloat peaks sometime soon, then we can have a race between ARM coming up from the bottom and Intel dropping down from the high-end to capture the small form-factor compute platform.
ARM is doing some amazing things in improving performance per watt but I wouldn't count Intel out.
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jimcondon
9/23/2010 7:56 PM EDT
With the announcements that Intel made at IDF about Tunnel Creek and WiDi, if I was ARM, I would be counting my eggs before they are hatched.
While ARM is winning in the handheld and tablet markets, Intel is marching in hard, and with technologies like WiDi, I can see a handheld that wirelessly connects to your display, keyboard and printer, allowing for your phone to transform in your PC with out a docking station. How's that for the future, pretty cool huh?
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VincePG
9/24/2010 3:55 AM EDT
Is Jen-Hsun staring in a Silicon Valley remake of the “Last Emperor? As Intel, Samsung and all the other CPU superpowers who hold all the significant sockets create hybrid devices with increasingly powerful and sufficient graphics carve up the world, leaving Nvidia the role of paper tiger making bold claims of superiority and the ultimate demise of the rest of the world... Meanwhile cloistered behind the shrinking walls of their Forbidden City of High End graphics, though courtiers reassuring that someday the markets will come begging for Nvidia technology, they end up but a eunuch carrying their chips in a jar as they are evicted from the market. The problem with graphics chips is once you reach a certain level of performance the leading edge becomes a theoretical game, not a mass marketable product. At that point any competent integrator can take the best part of your business, leaving you with no competitive edge and only theoretical profits.
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selinz
9/24/2010 12:26 PM EDT
While I do agree that smaller, more portable devices are the future, palm size is simply too small to do anything productive on. While I can do some web surfing and adjust the gamma on a just snapped pictures, for most stuff a palm sized device just won't cut it. And BTW, nice post Vince!
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vivekv80
9/24/2010 1:26 PM EDT
Intel has learnt from their Larrabee debacle and the Knights line from Intel is expected to outperform Nvidia GPUs. Even AMD is on the right track with its Bulldozer and Bobcat lines coming out next year. Will be interesting to watch this space when Intel, AMD and Nvidia are against each other in the HPC segment. ARM cores can be successful only in the mobile segment.. (Intel has already tried their best but still floundering)
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fino.meng
9/24/2010 1:42 PM EDT
after ARM give 64bit core, X86 will really have problem. a lot of Users just need basic function CPUs with smallest power.
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iniewski
9/24/2010 1:53 PM EDT
Would this trend indicated that Intel was caught blindsided by his fights to extract last few % of market share from AMD. You got to love high tech, just when you think you got the giant, a second later giant is struggling against more nimble and innovative competitor. But I would not count Intel out, it is will be fascinating to watch the battle though! Kris
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Eric Verhulst
9/24/2010 1:54 PM EDT
The issue with Intel is not their capability but legacy. Even when successfully entering ARM's embedded market (with Atom), it is mainly because they have a Si linewidth advantage and hence can run Wintel software on a credit card.
The game will only really change when developers are freed from the Wintel legacy. Away from the desktop, there are opportunities. But at the same time, the decisive factor is increasingly power consumption. Wintel has the lead because they are ahead in silicon technology. But at the same time, legacy free software can be 10 times or more efficient. And that is the opening others can take even with an older Si technology.
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JLS
9/24/2010 2:39 PM EDT
I don't think anyone is going to dominate the future; there is plenty of room for everyone. Pocket PCs are fine for some things, but my home PC has a 27 inch monitor and my phone is a phone only. I don't want my life dominated by over- communication. I don't want to write memos, emails, etc. with my thumbs. If my bosses wants to buy me a smart phone, that's fine, but I am not going to buy one and have to pay ridiculous fees to be connected. I don't twitter or SMS or have to feel obligated to answer banal chit-chat that seems to be the rage these days. So I will have a decent sized laptop for most things and a phone with limited abilities when away, but my phone will never replace my PC. PCs are bloated with too may layers of SW; obviouly! PCs need to go on a OS diet and get more efficient, but they are still the most comfortable form factor for real computing.
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agk
9/25/2010 3:06 AM EDT
Yes Yes ARM smartphones will bury x86 PCs How? If these smart phones will have a bigger size virtual key board and a projection screen built in side then these PCs laptops will go to museum.Or if these smartphones can read our minds and operate and project the screen also into our retina screen then the world is smart and smart.
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resistion
9/25/2010 6:09 AM EDT
Voice to text available on smartphones will make transition even easier.
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elctrnx_lyf
9/26/2010 1:05 PM EDT
Tablets/smart phones replacing the computers is not a reality so soon. Considering the power required to operate these devices is still coming from batteries and they aren't really powerful enough to run for long hours. But the future devices might be some CPU to integrate STB, wireless internet router, inbuilt audio control systems.
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CamilleK
9/28/2010 12:21 PM EDT
ARM based architectures do have an edge currently over x86 platforms but I agree with eewiz, the OS will actually enable all architectures and with cloud computing shifting the compute capability away from the hand-held, key adoption will rely more on user interaction and GUI and ease of use and less on raw cpu speed or compute on the device. The PC (and even the notebook) will end up being a shell and only keeping the Display as portal with the smart phone (voice, SMS) and the tablet (remote controller, entertainment launchpad, content creation and consumption)taking over for all remaining activities a PC used to do. Until then, and for nVidia, I recommend repositioning their GPUs as General Purpose Units, not just Graphics Processing Units in the existing PC/notebook space..
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docdivakar
10/1/2010 2:00 AM EDT
I believe the marketable benefits of GPU's will mostly come from the multicore servers (there are many that are already introducing them) before you see them in handsets. Recently I saw a Dell server with quadcore CPU's and GPU's that showed some screaming performance for high end simulation tasks. I suppose we are entering a new era of computing where the CPU as we know it today is destined to become an old shell of itself, much of its chores partitioned off to other processors.
Without the available bandwidth, it makes little sense to proliferate GPU's in smart phones. To that end, we need a clearer strategy from the telco carriers, not just to the last mile, but all the way to the last node connected (end to end).
MP Divakar
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TingLu
2/16/2011 9:44 AM EST
Why those ARM licensees, such as Qualcomm, TI, Marvell, and nVidia, are so up-beat of their upcoming SoC? I doubt anyone of those will be winners in this war. They are all competing the same market segment with little differentiation. The true winner is ARM, inc. And our consumer will take advantage of this as well. The big loser is likely Intel. No wondering Intel stock has been struggling at $20 even after record earning.
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