Motorola to Have Rapid I/O in All Future Processors

Anonymous Cow writes "This PDF from Motorola states that all future processors from Motorola will have rapid I/O (page 32). Further down (page 34) it claims that that Motorola has got a dualcore PPC processor in development. No launch dates are given." It also notes that they could achieve 3+ GHz, without significant increase in power consumption.

Comments

Nice outlook...

[gnuage.cowboy]

Looks like they will have a good processor for the embedded market. maybe they can stay in the game with apple and cause some competition for IBM. We need better PPC's!

Buses...

[Nexum]

Like waiting for a bus...

You're waiting for one for years (~3), and then two (970 & this) come along at once.

Re:Buses...

[TheRaven64]

And both of them seem to be moving in the right direction. I've been using a 1.33GHz Athlon for almost 2 years now, and it still feels fast. I have no incentive to upgrade to a faster CPU. A quieter CPU, on the other hand, would be useful. With a thermal output of over 60w, the Athlon is hot (and hence loud). A 20W CPU at the equivalent price would be great. And if it ran OS X, that would be a bonus :)

Re:Buses...

[tbmaddux]

Like waiting for a bus... You're waiting for one for years...

Except we Mac users have been waiting for two buses. As in double-pumped frontside buses.

Re:Buses...

[jjhlk]

I agree with you, but you're probably missing something...

I've had a 1200Mhz Athlon for 2 years, and it is fast enough to run everything I need too. But I play a fair amount of computer games, and while I can handle everything so far (with only an 8500LE) by the end of this year the next-gen first person shooters are going to be out. If I move to any faster video card my CPU is going to bottleneck my frame rate.

So if Apple can put out a computer with a cpu at around 1.6ghz /w Radeon 9700 I think it would handle games like Half-life 2 much better. The only problem then is actually get Half-life 2 to be ported to the Mac...

I can't like Macs without my games! (Halflife2!)

Re:Buses...

[jago25_98]

I was hoping to get away from the distractions of gaming by using linux too :p

Conspiracy theory #9

[yorkrj]

Was the development of the 970 chip by IBM a ploy by Apple to provide Motorola with a much needed kick in the rear? Moto seems to be playing catchup with it's PowerPC line lately.

Re:Conspiracy theory #9

[djward]

Hey, a little competition may have been all that was needed. And I have no doubts that Apple was playing both sides for the grand benefit of the middle. It just took a while.

Re:Conspiracy theory #9

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably not, but maybe once Motorola realized that they'd be losing Apple's business to IBM in the not-too-distant future they decided that the PC market does matter to them after all.

Nice Healthy Competition

[Coyote67]

This is certainly good news for the ppc crowd. Competition never hurts and imho is one of the major reasons ppcs never overtook x86s. If the new motos can perform as promised, apple could find space in their product line for them, maybe we'll see moto based ibooks/powerbooks and ibm based tower systems.

and this will be released when...

[Luxviaest]

our sun goes supernova with Moto's track record. Seriously folks, when was the last time Moto actually followed their roadmap?

Re:and this will be released when...

[simonecaldana]

> our sun goes supernova

Sun is not going to last long, rumors say it will be bought by Oracle

Re:and this will be released when...

[pmz]

Sun is not going to last long, rumors say it will be bought by Oracle

(OT) Does that buyout even make sense? Sun+Oracle would essentially become an IBM clone (but smaller), with Oracle potentially alienating its non-Solaris customers.

Re:and this will be released when...

[simonecaldana]

/me sighs at wasted irony

I think the only reason Oracle would want to buy Sun is to control Java.

Re:and this will be released when...

[pmz]

/me sighs at wasted irony

Sorry.

I think the only reason Oracle would want to buy Sun is to control Java.

Plausible, but, then, Oracle would end up in a bidding war with IBM. BEA and the other smaller players would get to sit nearby and watch the suspensful action.

Re:and this will be released when...

[simonecaldana]

> Plausible, but, then, Oracle would end up in a
> bidding war with IBM. BEA and the other smaller
> players would get to sit nearby and watch the
> suspensful action.

I do not think so. Oracle and IBM follows the "there is room enough" principle.

Oracle would strenghten Java's DB capabilities and make sure Oracle's DB server is the best for Java (and vice versa). Oracle would not dare to close up Java to cut out IBM and others: they know they will all get eaten by Microsoft.

Re:and this will be released when...

[commodoresloat]

Actually, they're going to be releasing this chip with Duke Nukem Forever pre-installed.

Road map?

[TheAvatar666]

Since when did Moto start following road maps? :-0

Re:Road map?

[TheRaven64]

Since when did Moto start following road maps? :-0

The article didn't say that they'd be following the roadmap, just that they had produced one, which is something that they've been doing for a while.

Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[SensitiveMale]

First motorola removed all macs from their offices.

Then they basically fuck Apple and all mac users by ignoring G4 development for years.

Apple finally gets pissed enough and goes to IBM for their processors.

Motorola finally learns how important the G4 processor is to their bottom line after posting enormous losses year after year.

IBM values a steady profit and their business practices show this.

This is a smokescreen from motorola to try and keep Apple's business.

I hope Apple tells them to fuck off.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[FatRatBastard]

Well, Apple's hands aren't clean either. They axed the clone market upon which clobbered demand (or at least the prospect of future demand) for their chips. If I was Moto I'd be pissed too.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[snuffdiddy23]

i don't blame them for not wanting others to boot their OS. they put nothing for security on the OS to prevent piracy, but they put something on the machine. if your machine is too old or too new to run an OS that you do not have free legitimate rights to you will not be able to run it in most cases, alot more secure than a serial number

it is not like we see cheap SPARC or MIPS systems out there either, gotta go to the big boys for the big bad systems, anyone can make an INTEL box.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[2nd Post!]

Playing 'hard to get' is in Apple's best interests; but it's also a good idea not to 'put all your eggs in one basket', and as such, Apple shouldn't spurn Motorola outright. 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush', and right now Motorola is a known quantity, and IBM is an unknown.

So perhaps the best course is to...

Keep Motorola
Bet on IBM
Plan around both

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[clifyt]

That would be a nice sentiment, other than stats showed that the clone market didn't increase sales of mac capible machines and meant losing a large source of their income from folks buying their 'Macs' from other companies -- and then having to play support when the clones didn't work the way they should have ruining the reputation of Apple.

Either way, Mot wasn't selling any more chips...

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[rgraham]

Well, Apple's hands aren't clean either. They axed the clone market upon which clobbered demand (or at least the prospect of future demand) for their chips. If I was Moto I'd be pissed too.

Yes and no. The problem with the Mac clones is that they weren't increasing the overall number of Mac sold, but were instead taking away from Apple's sales.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditto. Too little, too late.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[Dephex Twin]

Yes, and then when Apple ceased to exist a couple years later because of the clone market, just how well off would all involved be then?

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[dbrutus]

Actually, IBM is a longtime Apple supplier and is the source for Apple's G3 line.

I'm guessing that depending on the power consumption and performance characteristics, Apple's going to go with a 2 chip solution with IBM probably on the high end with their 970 and Motorola probably on the low end with their 32bit G5. This is exactly what was going on before except that the high end was previously held by Motorola.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[kraksmoka]

i happen to like my mips box, thank you. and they are cheap now, now that they are such a pain in the ass to compile anything for. of course my mips server is four years old now :( why do you have to attack my poor little raq ?

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[babbage]

IBM values a steady profit and their business practices show this.

Actually, their accounts show this, but there seems to be some question as to their veracity -- they may value a steady profit just a tad too much...

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[Dark Paladin]

This makes a lot of sense, actually.

The dual-core G4's could become something of an iBook line "Look, kids - faster iBooks, low power consumption", while the 970's could still be used in a new Powerbook line. "Need to warm up your lap? You can still do that with the 970 Aluminum 15"!"

Apple would be wise to use both IBM and Motorola - that way if one causes a problem, Apple can turn to the other and say "So - what's your offer?"

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[andrewski]

It's ironic that this move, which saved Apple from certain doom, has come back to bite them. Motorola has truly been just ignoring their G3 / G4 business for too long, and it shows.

Steve knows that Moto is just fuckin' with him this time. With much lower estimated cost re: the 970 vs the G4, IBM knows it is the apple of Apple's eye.

We may see these G4's, if they ever really DO come out, in iBooks and iMacs.

Just like I said when I heard that Sony was making a video game console. "I'll belive it when I see it."

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[PurpleRabbit]

That's "Mr Jobs" to you.

And me, I guess.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be difficult on the software side to support both 32- and 64-bit processors?

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[Elwood P Dowd]

I'd suggest that to Apple, both are known quantities. If they're rolling out anytime in the next three months, then they've been working instensively with IBM for the past year or more on this product. They probably know everything about IBM's production capabilities.

We're the only ones that are in the dark.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[2nd Post!]

At some point in the past this wasn't true; the PPC970 was a 'new' CPU, a retrofit of Altivec onto a scaled Power4 core :)

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Motorola - too little...too late. I hope Apple sticks to it's guns and tells Moto to go take a flying leap.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[moof-hoof]

Huh? Doesn't anybody remember when Apple told Motorola and the other clone makers to take a flying leap?

Because of Apple's decision to kill the clone market Motorola had to take a write off of more than $100,000,000USD. No small amount.

While I'm not a Motorola apologist, I think they have just focused on the embedded market and haven't bothered to pursue general purpose CPUs.

m00f

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you please put at least one more meaningless cliche into your post? kthxbye.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[steeviant]

A hundred million dollars sounds a little exaggerated, where did you get that figure from?

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

meant losing a large source of their income from folks buying their 'Macs' from other companies That was due to the defective way in which Apple implemented the clone market. Not because a clone market wouldn't have worked. As instantiated... yes it was screwed.

I think you folks forget that Moto was also a clone vendor. That is what is missing from the historical sequence referenced a couple of levels up. When Apple killed the clones they shafted Moto with tens(??) of millions of inventory. Now Moto blew way money than that on Iridium... but that not a way to make friends. Uber-leader Jobs pissed off a TON of Apples partners in the kill the clones move. Blowback is a bitch.

PowerComputing got a buyout. Moto got the shaft. IBM also has sunk money into reference designs, but didn't have inventory.

Right at the point of the nuking the clones Moto was poised to release the fastest machines out and Apple had near term response.

P.S. what was wrong about the clone instantiation?? You are correct in that support is expensive. However, if Apple had sold motherboards that wouldn't not have been a big problem. What Jobs did was nuke everything down to a simpler model (two or three motherboards). The same could have been done with the clones. The only reason why the clone market would be unviable is that if the MacOS costs were unviable. Pragmatically, it was easier to hit the reset button and just kill off cloning. One ball to juggle for a disfunctional company that couldn't juggle the balls in the air that they had.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[questamor]

Another problem is the dreadful quality problems with clones. I worked phone support for several thousand MacOS installs, spread across anything from the first model powermacs to the newest G4s at the times.

When it came to hardware failures, the mac clones outnumbered the apple made macs by something like 10 to 1. Considering there were far less clones in our installation than real macs, that's a pretty heavy bias against the clone boxes. The most common things to go were power supplies, CDROMs and floppy drives.

Quality control was just nowhere near Apple's own. There are varying thoughts on how good Apple's quality is, but there's no doubt the clones were far, far worse.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[dadragon]

No. The PowerPC archetechture is such that the 64 bit processors run the 32 bit code natively. So if you need to support both, just write for 32bit procs unless you need massive amounts of RAM.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[jerde]

Nah... it's just too much fun to use metonymy with our two favorite computer companies. And the more familiar you make it sound, the more entertaining it is.

So I just refer to Microsoft and Apple as "Uncle Bill" and "Uncle Steve".

I occasionally really confuse my poor users though, usually as I'm disgustedly muttering something about Uncle Bill. :)

- Peter

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

a known quantity?

are you some sort of tard? do you even know what a Mac is. the biggest problem with the Mac today is Motorola not being able to supply faster G4 chips to the market on a regular basis.

Motorola and quantity shall not be used in the same sentence.

on the other hand, you have IBM which developed the G3 which is capable of speeds of over 1.5GHz yet Apple can not release such the chip at those speeds because it would eclipse their flagship G4.

get a clue assclown.

Ditch Moto
stroke IBM
have chips that actually perform as well as Intel/AMDs

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[Alan Partridge]

he just doesn't know how to turn off his keyboard repeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[squiggleslash]

The "clone" makers could have just continued to produce CHRP compliant systems and gotten a different operating system for them. That, at least, would have been an option for Motorola had they wanted to keep the market for PPCs large enough to be viable. With a bankrupt Commodore (AmigaDOS) and Atari (GEM/TOS) available for the buying cheaply, two OSes immediately spring to mind that'd have ported quite well to the platform, especially rebuilt upon something stable. And that's ignoring that, at the time, BeOS and QNX would also have been licencable and required little work by Motorola themselves.

I'm not saying it'd have been cheap, but it'd have been less than the 100 million you're suggesting killing the clone business altogether would have cost Motorola. And it'd have certainly been positive for the computing market, as it'd have kept a range of machines available, something that's been sadly lacking since the choice became the Wintel clone vs the high-cost-of-entry Apple system.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[mccoma]

Given the signal IBM is sending out about the future G3 (750??), I would expect the iBook line to stay with the G3. It will probably always have a lower power consumption then the G4 and will probably have a vector unit in the future.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall

[drunkenbatman]

Another problem is the dreadful quality problems with clones. I worked phone support for several thousand MacOS installs, spread across anything from the first model powermacs to the newest G4s at the times.

Some were outright terrible, I'll give you that... and probably the head of the pack of them were the motorola ones. The components were just awful, and even the NIC cards varied from batch to batch- ie, order 10 moto clones and half would have one NIC and the others another that would have weird problems.

Some of them had excellent quality though. Specifically the PowerComputing lines, which were faster than what Apple shipped while being cheaper... yes the case was a little chincier, but the components were good. I still use one.

The other was a smaller outfit called MacTell or something close to that. Their stuff was ugly as hell, looked just like a PC, but was fast, cheap, and took a beating better than anything Apple had to offer. One of their "sales trick demos" at the time was kinda cool- the sales guy would pick up the tower from the table, then drop it straight to floor. Then put it back (without even opening it), plug it in and run their software demos.

Motorola was damn near the death of Apple

[SengirV]

Yawn. Why work on the G4 now Motorola? You've gotten this far with putting zero effert into it.

Here is the real roadmap:
1. Apple busts their hump working with IBM to get the 970 out the door.

2. Apple pays lipservice to Motorola until the entire line transitions to 970, 980, etc...

3. The second the entire line is free of the anchor known as Motorola's G4, Apple blasts Motorola for their ineptitude.

Will the total $ gained/lost by IBM/Motorola mean all that much to either company? No.

Will IBM's commitment to Apple help Apple? YES.

Did Motorola's stepping on their dicks for so long hurt Apple? YES

Re:Motorola was damn near the death of Apple

[jimbolaya]

Did Motorola's stepping on their dicks for so long hurt Apple? YES

Yes, but I've got to imagine that felt even worse for Motorola!

for the embedded market?

[Gizzmonic]

I think this chip is actually aimed at the embedded market, to compete with some of the newer MIPS-based CPUs. At any rate, if it's just appearing on a road map, it won't be in ANY machines for at least 2 years, and God help Apple if they are still using G4s by that time.

Re:for the embedded market?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it is for the embedded market. The slide on page seven says it all. They are trying to find a balance between frequency, power, and performance. For the PC/Mac market the emphesis should be on performance followed by power and then frequency.

The reason being that you can argue better performance for a lower frequency, as Apple has been. Battery life is also more important than frequency. But, performance is king and the "balanced architecture" approach has been proven, by Motorola, not to work in the personal computer market.

Re:for the embedded market?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Why is this even in the Apple section? This pdf is not talking about desktop or server chips, it is talking about embedded systems. Motorolla, with it's G4 and other chips is and has been the big player in embedded systems all along. In fact, the reason that Motorolla displays so little commitment to Apple is probably that they make so much more money of the embeded market.

In short, this story doesn't show that Motorolla has a renewed commitment to the Macintosh; what it really shows is that their commitment is still where it always has been: embedded systems.

105 Degrees what?

[Zo0ok]

On page 5 I read "Top frequency is 1.3 GHz @ 105 degrees C".

Do they mean Celcius, or do they actually mean Farenheit? Coult they possibly mean 105C?

Re:105 Degrees what?

[Wesley Felter]

I believe it really is 105 degrees C; a lot of embedded components are rated for "industrial" temperature ranges of 100C.

Re:105 Degrees what?

[TheRaven64]

It's a missprint, it's actually Kelvin. Yes, that's right, the new G4s will be so cool that they will actually suck heat right out of the room, and use it as power. That 20-30w figure is the amount of electricity it generates by this process.

Some manufacturers are going to sell blades with a G4 and an x86 chip in them taped together, with the G4 powered by the x86's waste heat...

Re:105 Degrees what?

[HTH NE1]

Well, if it is 105 (221 ), then I can think of one device that could use this as an embedded component: coffee makers.

But of course, if my coffee maker has a 1.3 GHz processor in it, it better make damn fine coffee!

Re:105 Degrees what?

[andrewski]

That is probably with no cooling. A P4 with no cooling / heat sink can ruin close to FOUR HUNDRED DEGREES farenheit. That makes this chip seem cool.

With a fan + heat sink / fan + heat pipes in laptops / etc, the surface temperature of the chip would never get even close to this hot.

Re:105 Degrees what?

[phoenix_rizzen]

Heh, now there is a truly novel innovation. Maybe that's nVidia's plan for the next generation GeForce?? They are prepping people on expecting dual-slot graphics cards now, so that next year they can release a dual-slot card where the second card is a GPU powered by the heat from the first GPU. See, buying 3Dfx will actually pay off. :)

Re:105 Degrees what?

[zobo]

Most likely they are specifying case temperature. It's difficult to gauge local ambient accurately because of the large temperature gradients over short distances. Case temperatures are often cited because their measurements tend to be very repeatable.

Re:105 Degrees what?

[psyconaut]

105 celcius is nothing. CPUs often run MUCH hotter than that at the packaging level.

Heck, even the little ICs I design with are rated to function perfectly @ 125 celcius...

-psy

Re:105 Degrees what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, 400F would probably ruin it.

Where did you get that number? They have automatic clock throttling that would prevent them from getting close to that temperature.

Re:105 Degrees what?

[andrewski]

Not automatic, but addressable clock throttling. You can change the thresholds in the bios to off.

Motorola still screwing Apple

[larryennis]

I think Motorola went to Fantasy Land at Disney Paris before their presentation!!! They said for a long time that they are looking towards the embedded market. That should have sent a red flag to Apple. But, I understand Apple too, being a long time customer and beliving in them to come through. PCs are at 3ghz, have faster I/O, 8X AGP, etc. Apple design is great, but they need machines to perform. To be right up on the heels of the PC or even steping on their feet. Instead Apple is in the cloud of dust and once in a while sticking their head out with design and software. I think Apple should go into other directions or the Mac is doomed. Direction #1: Stay with Motorola to have them supply the chips for the iBook ( they need to make the move to the G4 and these new Moto chips can do it.) and the iMac/eMac. Then Apple should look to IBM's 970 for the Power Mac and PowerBook. To take it to another level, they should go to AMD and use their "Clawhammer" for the Xserve. They have been not only talking to IBM but to AMD as well. AMD's chip will be great for the Xserve to run a whole slew of OSs for the corporate environment giving Dell and Compaq a run for the money. And the 970 to catch up to or pass (hopfully) the PC. I owned Apples all my life, and yes I do have a PC too, but my heart is with Apple and I do not want them to go the way like Sega.

Re:Motorola still screwing Apple

[paradesign]

apples already use AMD chips, just not for the CPU. so of course theyre talking to them, its how you build a system. id only imaging what it would turn out like if they did it all telepathicly.

but seriously, you must be a real NOOB to think that Apple would switch away from PPC, either that your one of teh ones that wants OSX on x86, ugg. if anything theyll launch a Power4 based Xserve, but even that is highly unlikely.

Re:Motorola still screwing Apple

[andrewski]

To take it to another level, they should go to AMD and use their "Clawhammer" for the Xserve.

Not unless Motorola and IBM both go out of business suddenly. The 970 and obviously the Moto are both PowerPCs, and the 970 is a 64 bit machine that runs existing 32 bit PPC code natively also. There is no way that Apple is going to involve another architecture unless it is their only course of action.

Binary compatibility of software is essential for Apple. Additionally, the PowerPC is a beautiful, proven design, unlike the 64 bit Intel and AMD chips.

Re:Motorola still screwing Apple

[larryennis]

Correction!!! OSX on a AMD processor. Not Intel!! And a AMD processor Not running Windows!!! That should put a big dent into the WinTel world. But you see that is only dreaming. It just comes down to one thing, Apple can not depend on Motorola anymore. They need to look to other alternatives like IBM or a AMD. Motorola is just not interested in making computer processors any more.

Low End Macs

[robm3660]

Given the effort IBM has gone to in order to make the 970 perfect for Apple, I'm left with little doubt that all high-end Macs will soon be powered by the 970. Motorola's last-ditch efforts to boost the G4 are simply too late to dissuade Apple from that course of action.

But the 970 will almost certainly be more expensive than the G4 at its introduction and possibly for some time afterward. Therefore, its probable that Apple is already planning to relegate its low-end offerings (iBook, eMac) to the G4 initially. These rumblings from Motorola are probably meant to persuade Apple to keep things that way for longer than it was perhaps already planning to. And if Motorola really does ramp the G4 to 3GHz in the near future (somehow I have my doubts about that) then they might just succeed.

In any case, I still believe that it is only a matter of time before the the Mac line is converted entirely to the 970. But what I want to know is this: will Motorola gain access to the 970 design specs because of the Apple-IBM-Motorola (AIM) PPC contracts. If so, will we see Motorola 970s in the future? I hope so; competition of this sort always benefits the consumer.

Re:Low End Macs

[Alan Partridge]

"But the 970 will almost certainly be more expensive than the G4 at its introduction and possibly for some time afterward."

Rumour mills are reporting that the 970 will, in fact, be 25-30% cheaper than the G4.

Re:Low End Macs

[shawkin]

Notes from assorted rumor sites claim that the 970 of about one third cheaper than the G4. Of course, rumor sites may be somewhat variable in utility.

Dual Core Motorola Chip

[kirn_malinus]

There is an article up on the register about this - http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/31026.html

Re:Dual Core Motorola Chip

[TheRaven64]

Yes, on a day when Motorola anounces that they plan to introduce dual-core chips, and ramp up clock frequencies /. posts an article about the bus their CPUs will be using.

the G Spot

[kraksmoka]

i agree with you. i saw the old roadmaps that said we would be running something in the 2ghz range, last year.

all i know is that my friends who are un-initiated but would be mac folk (being musicians and artists) all ask me if my TiBook is running a G5 and when the G6 is coming out.

lets face it, Moto doesn't give a shito about their desktop market.

The dual cores have to wait...

[bill_mcgonigle]

for the Quad-core G4's they were promising 'real soon now' about 5 years ago.

Really now, the G4 is destined for Cisco routers and the like; I wonder how many embedded OS's besides linux (and QNX?) support SMP. If they do manage to get it right, it's probably cooler and cheaper than multiple dies, two of embedded's favorite words.

Re:The dual cores have to wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Realtime OS's don't support SMP for a reason. They generally have fairly fixed functionality and the programmer partitions that app to run fixed into one of the CPU's. For example, one core doing packet processing, the other handling exeption packets.

I've been doing this for years, and we've never used SMP. Most dual core folks use no OS on one core and an RTOS or Linux on the other. I think this Mot chip would be useful for that.

They are entering a worrysome market place though if it's destined to be a packet processor. There are some well established players here such as broadcom and Intel.

Re:The dual cores have to wait...

[bill_mcgonigle]

Most dual core folks use no OS on one core and an RTOS or Linux on the other.

Interesting, thanks.

They are entering a worrysome market place though if it's destined to be a packet processor.

They already have Cisco as a customer - I suspect there aren't enough high-end Ciscos sold to keep the G4 alive, though, especially if/as they move toward more HyperTransport designs.

Yep

[inertia187]

I love it how the /. ad that came up was for http://www.tabletpcdeveloper.com/.

This may be the end of Moto Macs

[tinpan]

• Apple is a HyperTransport Consortium member.
• The non-release of Moto's G5 for Mac may have been due, in part to a HT/RapidIO disagreement between Apple and Moto.
• IBM's PPC 970 supports HyperTransport.

This makes the PPC 970 Macs almost a sure thing. And then come the PPC 980 Macs... Mmmmm.

Re:This may be the end of Moto Macs

[Wesley Felter]

The 970 does not support HyperTransport.

Re:This may be the end of Moto Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're dead on with that. This isn't really a Moto fsckd Apple, now Apple's gonna fsck Moto story. A coupla years of G4 clock speed stagnation plus a difference of opinion over the future bus and the two companies are contemplating a reduced relationship. Normal business really. So was Apple's decision to terminate licensing of their OS.

The real question is whether Moto has any future as a processor supplier to Apple. While these promised new Moto offerings may appear like obvious choices for low end / portable Macs, I think the pressure on Apple for MORE performance (i.e non-incremental) has built to such a degree that it will be difficult to sell non-PPC 970 gear once the first of that breed is introduced.

It's a given that Apple will advertise the first 970 product as 'teh fastest' at something and regardless of whether they will actually give a 3.2 P4 a good run or not, they WILL be proclaimed by one and all to be WAY, WAY FASTER than ANY (lowly) G4.

Especially if the bargain pricing rumors are true, but even if they're not, I'll be surprised if Apple doesn't transition the entire line to 970s as fast as they realistically can. As a side benefit it'll help them accomplish a swift changeover to 64-bits. Granted that's not a necessity, but it is sorta the way Apple likes to do these things.

It's our fault.

[Slur]

If we'd lit up a cigarette the buses would have arrived right away.

Turn me on, dead man

[Anonymous Coward]

"Playing catch up" assumes they really care about the desktop market - they sell approximately 3x as many chips for embedded stuff as they do to Apple. You try to figure out what's more important to them.

Besides, it doesn't matter how much slower they are, they have the Apple zealots that will claim beyond logic that they're faster. Why sweat making them faster? ;-)

Re:Turn me on, dead man

[Alan Partridge]

hmmm...

Out of the 7 million G4s that Motorola have manufactured thus far, 5.5 million of them have been bought by Apple Computer.

YOU try to figure out who SHOULD be more important to them.

Re:Turn me on, dead man

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because Motorola doesn't make any other processors, there is *only* the G4.

I'll bet according to you, Apple has 50% market share too, right?

Re:Turn me on, dead man

[Alan Partridge]

Irrelevant. How many Coldfire or 68K or who-knows-what else Motorola makes has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion.

According to me, Apple has OVER 50% of the Apple Macintosh market. Or did you have another market in mind?

Re:Turn me on, dead man

[Anonymous Coward]

G3, etc.? Ever heard of those?

Wonder why Motorola hasn't tried too hard making a killer desktop microprocessor? The (basically) embedded chips that Apple continues to use because they're easier to use than porting to x86 or other are all targetted mainly at embedded markets. I know, there are fancy graphs on Apple.com that say "fastest processor EVAR!!!1!!" but the truth is, Apple is still squeezing life out of embedded chips by overclocking them because they don't move enough product from Motorola to light a big enough fire under their ass to significantly upgrade the architecture.

By over 50% did you mean the "angry, overly defensive, self-absorbed, deluded, creative professional market?"

Re:Turn me on, dead man

[Alan Partridge]

"G3, etc.? Ever heard of those?"

Perfect example - Apple buys ALL of it's G3s from IBM. Why? IBM's are faster and cheaper. Apple would buy them from moto if Moto's were any good. Apple is only squeezing life out of the G4 in the way that it is because motorola have catastrophically failed to deliver on the roadmap that they set out at the introduction of the G4. The fact that IBM have the G3 on a .13 process with 512KB of L2 and a DDR FSB while Moto have the "higher end" G4 on a .18 process with 256KB of L2 and an SDR FSB just about says it all. Altivec is EASILY the most powerful SIMD unit on the commodity CPU table at the moment, but it's Motorola's total failure to scale clock speed in the way that they promised that's been holding back the integer and FP performance of the Mac platform for the last few years.

"By over 50% did you mean the "angry, overly defensive, self-absorbed, deluded, creative professional market?""

No, I meant what I wrote, the Apple Macintosh market.

Re:Turn me on, dead man

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh. So you can see that Motorola sells lots of G3s, and not to Apple. You can see their desktop performance from these embedded chips isn't all that great....what exactly is your problem?

Mot makes embedded chips. Apple buys them and uses them as desktop machines. Apple (and their overly defensive users) can complain all they want about performance, but Mot makes most of their money from people who need slower, lower power chips. I wonder why they're "falling behind" and by "falling behind" I mean "making chunks of change selling mostly to the embedded markets without significantly updating their product line, because Apple isn't a big enough customer to warrant the investment?"

Mot hasn't been in the business of making fast desktop chips. Is that really all that hard to believe?

Re:Turn me on, dead man

[Alan Partridge]

Motorola hasn't been in the business of making MONEY, though they've become expert in the business of losing loads of engineering talent to their competitors.

And how well is Motorola doing in the much-vaunted embedded market now? Well, I've got a Palm Tungsten T here that's running on a Ti OMAP for a start...

Re:Turn me on, dead man

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you've got one product that doesn't use a motorola processor. Case closed. ROTFLMMFAO!

Notice the pin-compatibility and non-desktop rated processor here? Must be for Apple.

Thanks for helping me understand how Apple stays in business.

Re:Turn me on, dead man

[Alan Partridge]

fuck, you're stupid

if you look at the Palm pda market, what do you see? All the new models from Palm and Sony released in 2003 - who both used to use Moto CPUs - have been powered by non-Moto chips with the exception of Sony's SL-J33.

So that's the G4 market disappearing AND the Dragonball market contracting - I wouldn't be at all surprised if Moto was getting assfucked in the router market, too.

Too little, too late. Motorola can suck it.

[phillymjs]

They drag their asses for years and leave the G4 stuck in the doldrums, making Apple (read: Steve Jobs) look bad. Now that Apple is most likely going to take their business to a vendor who is interested in meeting the needs of their client (what a concept!), Motorola's getting interested in competing again? Please!

It's way too late for that-- the die has been cast, and more than likely has been since the first generation of "we can't get faster CPUs, so we put in two CPUs" Power Mac G4s. Spend your development money on more uber-annoying "Hello Moto" ads, and leave the CPU business to companies who are serious about it, ya friggin' tards.

~Philly

Apple's System Configuration: Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe that everybody missed this: Apple will have the following line-up in fall of 2003:

• Powerbooks - dual core G4
• iBooks/eMacs - single core G4
• Power Macs - 970

The 970 won't be used in other systems, because it'll eat power more than Moto's PPC. The only question is what will they put in the iMacs, where their is no power constraint like on the laptops. My guess is dual core G4, but chip costs will ultimately decide it.

Re:Apple's System Configuration: Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with this prediction except for the PowerBooks. The articles I've read on the 970 including those at arstechnica.com suggest that the heat and power attributes of a 1~1.2 GHz 970 would fit well within the limitations of the PowerBook. In fact a dual core G4 might even be hotter. Also the 970 will be on sale well before any dual core G4 which won't come out until 2004.

All the other product ranges you have guessed right IMO, including the dual core G4 iMac. This will make the iMac the better AltiVec machine than the PowerMac or the X-Serve, depending on the relative clock speeds.

Low cost PPC motherboards and Processors?

[mnmn]

Does anyone sell low-cost motherboards and processors like the Taiwanese boards for Intel and AMD? It would be nice to be able to assemble cheap computers in ATX form, perhaps with SCSI built in, for Linux use. I would be interested for one, if the price is right.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on tsarkon reports

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM an unknown?

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA. Shows how much you know about this subject.

Man, even IBM is giving Intel a headache these days. Opteron and Power 4+ are out, and Opteron is the first SOI chip. (So from a super high end 64 bit CPU with multicore and a giant cache to a cutting edge x86 32/64 hybrid, IBM is executing NOW)

If you think IBM foundries haven't made Crapple Computer chips before, think again. They have. Where Motorola fails, IBM delivers.

Re:Motorola sees the writing on tsarkon reports

[Alan Partridge]

So IBM is fabbing the Opteron? Is the Athlon 64 going to be fabbed by AMD themselves in Germany and Singapore then? Which fab is IBM making the Opteron in?

Re:Motorola sees the writing on tsarkon reports

[Anonymous Coward]

SUNNYVALE, CALIF, and EAST FISHKILL, N.Y. -- AMD (NYSE: AMD) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced the two companies have entered into an agreement to jointly develop chip-making technologies for use in future high-performance products.

The new processes, developed by AMD and IBM, will be aimed at improving microprocessor performance and reducing power consumption, and will be based on advanced structures and materials such as high-speed silicon-on-insulator (SOI) transistors, copper interconnects and improved low-k dielectric insulation.

Since AMD hasn't beaten Intel with respect tor process and munfacturing capability (and all of a Sudden it does now with SOI and clear problems with Itanium), its easy to figure out that AMD's new muscle cam from licensed IBM process technology.

DEC used to go to IBM for Alpha when IBM came out with copper interconnect (first).

Fab30, where Opteron and AMD64 are made, is AMD's own, but the revolutions in manufacturing capability came from technology they licensed from IBM.

The chip for a G4 video iPod

[RemiT]

Not ONE word about it? Hmmmm....

Re:The chip for a G4 video iPod

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting thought. If Apple produces the anticipated TiVo type set-top box with digital video recording and streaming with Airport Extreme then a dual core G4 or high clock speed G4 would suit. If they simply take the iPod and add video playback on a little screen via the new QuickTime 6.3 mobile phone standard then they will not use a G4 in that but something like the present processor or an ARM design I guess.

Spurn some competition.....

[FaasNat]

This could make for some great competition inspired innovation. Much like how AMD and Intel compete with each, they're always coming out with better procs to out do the other. As a consumer, we can choose to go with either AMD or Intel for our setup.

Apple -- and Apple's customers if they did go this route -- will have the same choice as well. Machines based off the 970 and its successor or Mot's new proc. With IBM and Mot competing for the same market, they will have to keep improving to be on top.