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Microsoft Developing Console Chips
The Cheesecake writes "The New York Times is running an article that says that Microsoft is looking into designing and developing microchips. These will primarily be for the next generation of the Xbox. They also mention it could be used for things like voice recognition. They look to be doing this through a process designed by UC Berkley which makes it possible to reconfigure computer designs without the cost of making finished chips."
I can see it now:
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all!!
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First it's software, then it's computer chips, then it's robots, then it's...well we all saw Terminator...
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Gotta spend that 10-digit R&D budget on something. Anything.
Lots of R&D projects make MSFT look like a buy with growth potential. Competent maintenance of a core business (like Windows or Office) would make it look like Otis Elevator.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
If you've ever browsed through the old Windows C library header files, you notice some "Copyright Berkeley Systems Division" type stuff in there... no surprise that's where they turn!
stuff |
Will their chips turn blue when the console crashes?
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Sun, SGI, DEC and IBM were disappointed in off-the-shelf CPU chips. Sun switched from Motorola to in-house SPARC. SGI bought MIPs to control CPU development. DEC had the most respected chip in the business. Apple used IBMs design. None of these enterprises were considered great commercial successes. Most of the survivors use Intel or AMD now. The big guys can come up with new versions each year or so and catch up to the "boutique" designs.
I wonder if Uncle Bill and Uncle Steve are looking to enforce DRM through hardware or remove (or severely restrict) the ability to mod-chip the next-gen Xbox.
... you will get a new chip delivered every first Tuesday in 'snail mail' with instructions for removing the old chip and soldering and what not on how to install the new chip update due to 'important "critical" security updates".
Oh Yea?
"First it's software, then it's computer chips, then it's robots, then it's...well we all saw Terminator..."
But for a while, we will have to put up with Microsoft Robot, whose face goes entirely blue for no reason at all, which crashes into the wall several times a day, which has trouble obeying you since it is constantly bombarded with commands from all over the world, and which considers the Asimov Laws of Robots as mere recommendations.
Where were you when the voynix came?
NAI announces a new generation of security products, dubbed "McAfee Microchip Edition Software Suite (MESS) 1.0"
"They also mention it could be used for things like voice recognition."
Every time Microsoft introduces another new platform, whether OS, Office, HW, game console, or new executive, they promise voice recognition. Of course they never deliver.
Even the dedicated voice recognition researchers and developers don't have real voice recognition on any HW. MS doesn't do the kind of basic research necessary to move further down the road. And it doesn't even productize the R&D done by others - it copies or buys products from competitors. Or it keeps doing it wrong every time, until expectations are low enough that small improvements are declared victory.
The people who deliver useable voice recognition will work it out in the open telephony world, which has enough focus, money, constraints and momentum to actually get across the threshold to universal, untrained voice recognition that does something limited, but at least as perfectly as humans do.
Next we'll hear that these chips will be good for a "database filesystem"...
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make install -not war
They will now be called Microhard.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Honestly, what could be possibly be the satisfaction in making up nonsensical things like this in order to ridicule them? Could there possibly be a cheaper form of argumentation? Nowhere in the article is anything that anyone with brain function could possibly construe as "Microsoft Invents FPGA".
>>makes it possible to reconfigure computer designs without the cost of making finished chips
Dear Bill,
There are two other ways to "make it possible to reconfigure computer designs without the cost of making finished chips"
1) buy the finished chips from someone else
2) use FPGAs if the design must change on-the-fly or after delivery to customer.
On the other hand, that's what software is for.
You're welcome.
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Jon
Until someone mods the Xbox 360, they've effectively removed that ability from it as well. The DVD firmware hack will only let it run copied games, not unsigned code.
None of these enterprises were considered great commercial successes.
.com boom. How many do they have to sell to be a 'great commercial success'?
If you don't call DEC's Alpha chip a 'great commercial success', than what is? Does it still have to be on the market? What chip from the Alpha era is still on the market? They've all been redesigned since.
The only reason the Alpha 'failed' is because DEC's support business was so much more profitable than it's CPU business.
The big guys can come up with new versions each year or so and catch up to the "boutique" designs.
Intel only managed to catch up with the Alpha for two reasons: They stopped coming out with new versions of the Alpha, and Intel implemented patented Alpha designs without a license. It's not really a fair argument to you though, since Alpha wasn't 'boutique', and DEC *was* one of the 'big guys'.
Similarly, SPARC was *the* CPU of the
All the magic is out of CPU design. Lots of people know how to do it, and do it well. The hard part these days is in the manufacturing process, and you can buy that. There is no good reason not to design your own CPU if you can reasonably expect to sell enough of them,
August 9, 2010: Microsoft announced today he first patch for their first microchip, the MSME VID2009 videogame engine core.
The VID2009 chip was recently taped out by the newly formed MS Micro-electronics division. It was widely acclaimed as a new era for MS, altohugh the two analysts still not paid by MS voiced concerns about how the usual Microsoft quality control would not fly with electronic microchips.
MS issued the patch in response to reports about VID2009-equipped videogame consoles spontaneously bursting into flames and cutting users' fingers by snapping the DVD reader door too quickly. The reports have been piling up since 2007. "Since MS bought every other game console maker, it's not like we consumers have a choice", says Gaban Tycho, a self-appointed gaming affair watchdog. "Face it, today's dedicated gamer has either burnt skin patches or missing fingers. Sometimes both. Hey, since you've got fingers, could you open that bottle of burn lotion for me?"
Today's patch is expected to solve these issues, although initial reports show it might introduce other problems: when the voice recognition headset is used and the user pronounces the word "Linux", the patched unit sends 110V AC through the headphones.
The patch is replacing 53 logic gates, changing two nano-instructions and rerouting 12 clock signals inside the VID2009 chip. A small issue might delay the application of the patch, though: It requires replacing the chip itself. An MS spokeperson said that the replacement was covered by the standard MS two-week warranty, but that older units would have to be discarded.
As usual, the MS Patch Police, a team of electronics expert affectionately known as the Blue Squad of Death, will patrol neighborhoods and listen to howls of pain to determine where faulty consoles might be located. Unpatchable units will be shredded at customers' premices. "I hate those guys", Tycho said. "Last time, I stepped on my cat's tail and here came the Blue Squad, ramming through the door. They couldn't find the console so they destroyed the toaster instead."
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Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
They are using a system that allows them to evaluate the performance of different potential designs without actually fabbing a prototype. The Berkeley system is basically a board with a handful of FPGAs (a cheap QuickTurn box).
It's nice to see Microsoft bringing quality to new markets ;). Seriously, Microsoft has to hedge it's bets - Windows and Office may not be cash cows forever. Twenty years from now Microsoft might be like IBM is today - important, influencial and profitable but not the young vigorous company it used to be. Microsoft should go for providing the best standards-based tools and environments it can. I believe that Microsoft place in the future is guaranteed and that at some point in the future they will be selling window managers for X alongside APIs that make everything easy to create and use (C#, XNA, Self configuring and healing networks, etc.). Microsoft's vast cash stores and pool of seventy odd thousand employees represents a major force in computing so don't be surprised when ten years from now you can download GPU updates if you were smart enough to buy a top-notch Microsoft console ;).
Shh.
The only voice recognition command I need is:
when I yell "DAMMIT!!!" at the top of my lungs, I want the OS to gracefully recover from a blue screen of death and automatically save the term paper I've spent ALL NIGHT writing.
(yeah, I know I'm supposed to save often, but you can't tell me it hasn't happened to you, too.)
IBM's PowerPC design is in all the next-gen consoles, PPC was in Tivo too. IBM has a lot of PPC systems in the Top 500 supercomputer list. I wouldn't call PPC a commercial failure. A lot of embedded designs still use ARM variants (Intel's XScale was derived from DEC StrongARM), among others. I think MIPS is used in a lot of embedded systems, take a look at Linksys's WRT54G. When you get away from what you'd call a conventional computer, there are a lot of viable CPU architectures.
"If you don't call DEC's Alpha chip a 'great commercial success', than what is? Does it still have to be on the market? What chip from the Alpha era is still on the market? They've all been redesigned since."
I'm a huge Alpha proponent, so please understand that when I ask you what the hell you're smoking. Alpha was a monumental "commercial" failure. It was a huge "technological" success, but for many reasons it failed commercially. Heck, Apple sold more G4 Macs in a single quarter than DEC (and Samsung and Mitsubishi) sold Alphas during its entire product life.
Sheesh.
It occurs to me that the DRM in the XBOX starts at the hardware level. So if MSFT wants to really lock down their systems making their own hardware would be a good place to start.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Yeah, because when MS is really serious about making something that Just Works, especially a security product, they turn to their industry-leading in-house talent.
My bullshit detector is going wild here. The magic is not all out of cpu designs. If you believe that, well you can go the way of the alpha.
The magic is not out of it. Most of the basics have been covered, that is true, and manufacturing process matters a lot; also true. But the manufacturing process is also not just a matter of "throwing a lot of money at it". However as I'm not as familiar with the manufacturing side of things, I'll stick to the areas I know, like processor design.
If the magic were gone in CPU design, and it was all about manufacturing, why do both ATI and Nvidia compete so heavily, and why can one produce chips faster than the others (although it switches too often for me to care). Sure they may not be general purpose processors, but they're highly important, and they are processors. Additionally while the changes in intels designs may be more on the level of incremental improvements (doubling cores etc) it doesn't mean there's not a lot of research going into it.
Now if you take the narrow mind that the magic in single core superscalare processor architecture is gone, sure. I'll agree with you there. That's a well studied problem. The research community moved on years ago. Simplescalar results no longer mean anything. However their is a large amount of research and development being done in the system design (the system level being restricted to a single chip). Cache-processor(s) interaction, efforts to improve programmability of chips etc etc.
Designing your own chip is a very very risky endeavor, even if you have multiple billions of dollars in the bank like microsoft does. If they manage to pull this off; more power to them. It's a very challenging process, and will not be done by grunts (i.e. it will require roomfuls of PhDs working on various parts of the project. Your comment about being reasonable to design your own... well I tend to disagree. Building the chip used in the xbox360 from scratch would have cost far more money than leveraging the design and knowledge expertise that IBM already had. Plus the chips needed for consoles have nowhere near the volume required to build their own fab. So in that case, that means they would contract out the fab work, and so the whole point is in their design. Sure looks like design is dead to me.
Phil
It depends on how uninsightful everything you've heard/read before seeing that post was!
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia