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peter.clarke
t.alex
Huge software headache..
AMD looks smart in the brain engineering era
Peter Clarke
6/13/2012 8:06 AM EDT
Foundation is the easy part
And certainly setting up a foundation is the relatively easy part. It is easy compared making something that is designable, energy efficient and EASY TO PROGRAM that covers square centimeters of silicon with billions of transistors and built using 14- or 11-nm design rules.
But Intel's success in the personal computer forced AMD forced to take the long view.
What is missing are some examples of success, such as an Apple, Nvidia or ST-Ericsson HSA engine. That may have to wait on deployment of the PowerVR Series 6 and the Mali-T6XX graphics cores which are designed to support more general computing as well as graphics rendering.
Kudos should go to AMD's CEO Rory Read who was prepared to roll the dice on AMD's future, but in their previous state AMD had very little to lose, except more money. Kudos should also go to the senior executives at ARM and Imagination who were able to set aside graphics rivalries to be prepared to work together within HSA. Will Intel be able to do the same?
Now the difficult business of writing software and defining software interfaces resumes. It is to be hoped that more companies will quickly join this initiative. It will need all the brain engineering the industry can muster, but this looks to be a good start and pointed in the right direction.
Related links and articles:
Analysis: Why ARM-AMD makes sense
AMD to integrate ARM core into APUs
AMD, ARM, Imagination, TI, MediaTek form HSA group
AMD creates embedded IC business unit
And certainly setting up a foundation is the relatively easy part. It is easy compared making something that is designable, energy efficient and EASY TO PROGRAM that covers square centimeters of silicon with billions of transistors and built using 14- or 11-nm design rules.
But Intel's success in the personal computer forced AMD forced to take the long view.
What is missing are some examples of success, such as an Apple, Nvidia or ST-Ericsson HSA engine. That may have to wait on deployment of the PowerVR Series 6 and the Mali-T6XX graphics cores which are designed to support more general computing as well as graphics rendering.
Kudos should go to AMD's CEO Rory Read who was prepared to roll the dice on AMD's future, but in their previous state AMD had very little to lose, except more money. Kudos should also go to the senior executives at ARM and Imagination who were able to set aside graphics rivalries to be prepared to work together within HSA. Will Intel be able to do the same?
Now the difficult business of writing software and defining software interfaces resumes. It is to be hoped that more companies will quickly join this initiative. It will need all the brain engineering the industry can muster, but this looks to be a good start and pointed in the right direction.
Related links and articles:
Analysis: Why ARM-AMD makes sense
AMD to integrate ARM core into APUs
AMD, ARM, Imagination, TI, MediaTek form HSA group
AMD creates embedded IC business unit
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Les_Slater
6/13/2012 1:41 PM EDT
"Even if some of them DO share the vision, commercial competitiveness may persuade them NOT to join HSA on the grounds that differentiation is achieved by working separately or in a different group. Market pressures sometimes do that to technology."
This is part of the problem. The other which is inferred by the success of Intel in the PC business. In the short term it is very compelling not to compete with yourself.
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Hephaestus
6/13/2012 2:04 PM EDT
That's one small step for a company...one giant leap towards the technological singularity...
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DMcCunney
6/13/2012 4:09 PM EDT
I'm actually a bit surprised this hasn't happened before. AMD currently makes Intel X86 compatible CPUs. but there's no reason they shouldn't make CPUs with ARM cores. (Intel used to, in the Strongarm division they originally got from DEC sold to Marvell.) And AMD won't have any "not invented here" issues with doing so. AMD makes and sells chips, and ARM processors are poised to make a run at markets AMD is active in, so being able to offer X86 and ARM solutions is a compelling vision.
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Wobbly
6/13/2012 5:55 PM EDT
Many Smartphone chips are already 'HSA' with a compliment of high speed 32 bit Application processors, multi-thread DSP, video acceleration, low speed 32 bit management processors, vector engines for the modems, acceleration blocks for cryptographic functions, HD video, audio, plus embedded power and clock management. If that isn't HSA, I am not sure what is.
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peter.clarke
6/18/2012 6:18 AM EDT
@Wobbly
My take on that is...you are right they are HSA....BUT they are not as generalized or as complex as HSA will become.
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Goffers
6/14/2012 4:19 AM EDT
Presumably the presence of a Cortex-A5 will be more than is necessary just to support Trust Zone, leaving some potential head room for ARM code applications already built in.
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t.alex
6/17/2012 9:17 AM EDT
Huge software headache..
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