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NVIDIA Enters the Mobile CPU Market

Posted by kdawson on from the or-should-we-say-mobile-gpu dept.

Vigile writes "NVIDIA just announced the new Tegra line, a complete system architecture on one chip. Built around a licensed x86 ARM 11 CPU, this tiny chip (smaller than a US dime) includes a processor, memory controller, southbridge, and 3D and video processors. The SoC design is meant to give iPhone-type devices a more impressive visual experiences while maintaining idle power consumption under 100 mW. While not a direct competitor to Intel's Atom or VIA's Nano processors, the NVIDIA Tegra will no doubt push the envelope in handhelds and cement NVIDIA's place in the world of computing going forward."

23 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Not x86 by zsazsa · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article summary is wrong or has a typo or something. This is not on some weird hybrid x86/ARM platform; it's just ARM.

    1. Re:Not x86 by OrangeTide · · Score: 5, Funny

      Screw that, I will only buy an ARM if it's an x86 ARM. I need to run Vista, a computer is not a computer without Vista!!

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    2. Re:Not x86 by jd · · Score: 5, Funny

      If it was an x86, it would be mostly 'armless.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  2. Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to by DrunkenTerror · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ars had a good article about it

    Stupid lameness filter.

  3. Not x86 by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Insightful

    oh yeah, kdawson. Go figure. From the article title: "Its not X86, but who cares?"

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  4. Dupe by Hektor_Troy · · Score: 5, Informative

    We had the exact same thing yesterday

    http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/02/1441214

    --
    We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
    1. Re:Dupe by mrbluze · · Score: 5, Funny

      We had the exact same thing yesterday And you'll be getting it again tomorrow if you don't eat yer veggies!
      --
      Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
    2. Re:Dupe by Dahamma · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not quite the exact same thing... this one is LESS accurate ;)

  5. WinCE... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am really hoping that they plan on expanding the lineup of supported operating systems. Obviously Windows is never going to happen, this being an ARM core; but Linux would be nice. In particular, Linux is pretty much the only way that this chip will have any shot of crawling out of the smartphone/PMP ghetto and making its way into general purpose small computers(I'd love to see a laptop built around something of this sort).

    Windows CE just isn't a very pleasant OS period, and its flaws really start to show once you get outside of the smartphone market, where at least it has some experience, or the thin-client market, where abject suck doesn't matter too much. Whether or not you like Linux or Windows better, you'd be hard pressed to argue that Windows CE is better for anything resembling a real computer. Unfortunately, given that this is Nvidia, and the chip looks tuned to "support premium content" I'm not going to be holding my breath. It's a pity, really. This setup looks rather cooler than Atom, and capable of some really fun stuff, but I'm not sure how good the odds are of it ever making its way into a mininotebook or small desktop form factor.

    1. Re:WinCE... by rbanffy · · Score: 3, Informative

      With its power envelope and die size, they could put 8-way multi-processing and some vectorized FPUs before they hit either Atom's die size or power consumption ;-)

      Seriously, with Via making a complete reference design freely available, what could stop someone from making a compatible motherboard that could fit in the place intended for a VIA-based motherboard?

      The Eee shows that any processor that can drive a web browser and an e-mail program can be the core of a successful sub-notebook. In NVidia's shoes, I would invest a decent amount of money to make sure Gnash runs fine on it and is as compatible with Flash as compatibility can be.

      I would love to see a small sub-notebook with a fast multi-core, multi-threaded, ARM-based CPU, an XO-derived widescreen display, an iPod-class HDD and a battery that could power it all for 24 hours of continued abuse.

      And I bet it could be done for peanuts, which means a huge profit margin beyond the wildest dreams of the commodity PC-compatible market.

      Of course, I assume someone from Microsoft mentioned casually to someone at NVidia, perhaps during golf, that they could consider dropping some NVidia support on an upcoming Vista service pack if those Linux-running small CPUs start making inroads in the undead XP camp.

      --
      http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
    2. Re:WinCE... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The main problem, even if MS were willing to put the resources into a port, is that Window's value is severely reduced without its massive library of third party stuff. Since the overwhelming majority of the Windows ecosystem is proprietary in nature, and much of it made by outfits other than MS, it would be an absolute miracle if MS were able to get more than a tiny bit of it ported over.

      As for the various NT ports, they aren't an encouraging picture. NT MIPS and Alpha are dead, XP for Itanium is dead, and there is no Vista for Itanium. Only Windows Server and a few of its variants are still alive. And look at the slow pace of the x86/x86_64 transition.

      I suspect that limited platform support is a decent business decision for MS, they aren't stupid, and they probably know better than we do how much fun it would be to attempt to bludgeon every last software vendor for Windows into shipping multiarchitecture support; but I seriously doubt that anything short of the probable extinction of the x86 architecture would motiveate a wholesale move on MS' part.(Maybe a stopgap of some sort, x86 virtualization built into the kernel or similar, or a move of existing MS tech to a new environment .NET on WinCE or Singularity or something; but classic NT and friends not so much).

    3. Re:WinCE... by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 3, Informative

      To support a CPU is not enough. ARM cpu cores will typically connect to an AMBA bus (like hypertransport), but these SoCs will usually have the entire bus internal. You'll have a whole set of peripherals which need to be programmed all over again with little or no code reuse from existing projects. You need to understand how these peripherals interact with the boot rom and CPU in order just to load a bootloader onto it. If you have perfect documentation, you'll still probably need at least a decent oscilloscope or logic analyzer to get a heartbeat out of it. Talk to any firmware or digital design engineer about 'board bring up' on an unproven cpu platform, and you'll likely hear quite a few nasty anecdotes.

      All this can be done, but it would save everyone a lot of time if nvidia supports Linux with a real board support package.

      --
      Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
  6. Like on the Handheld PC by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    Obviously Windows is never going to happen, this being an ARM core [...] you'd be hard pressed to argue that Windows CE is better for anything resembling a real computer. Some versions of Windows Mobile were designed to run on a form factor called Handheld PC, which was in essence a Pocket PC with a bigger screen and a keyboard. Can you demonstrate a problem with building a subnotebook around such a platform, especially now that the XO and Eee have stimulated the low-end subnotebook market?

    (I'd love to see a laptop built around something of this sort) This northern summer, the Pandora PDA comes out. If you like handheld computers, you might want to check it out.
    1. Re:Like on the Handheld PC by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've been looking forward to the Pandora. I'm not much of a gamer anymore; but it looks to be shaping up into a very capable little box. I'm quite tempted to pick one up when the time comes.

      As for WinCE, I know that it can be made to act something like a real desktop/notebook OS, I've used and deployed loads of HP "semithin" clients(mostly citrix or RDP; but limited builds of IE, WMP, etc are available locally) running WinCE of various versions, and I've used a few PDAs running it. It just doesn't measure up as a desktop OS. It looks just enough like Windows to screw with your expectations; but doesn't run Windows programs, use Windows drivers, or even behave all that much like Windows in terms of shell look and feel. Given their sterling performance with "Vista capable/ready" I'm sure that MS marketing would have no trouble explaining to Cletus and Maybell User why their bargain bin software won't run on that Windows...

      Essentially, WinCE suffers from the majority of the shortcomings commonly ascribed to running a non-Windows OS on the desktop, without possessing any significant upsides.

  7. Please not WinCE by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 3, Informative
    Linux and ARM are great partners. There are probably more ARM Linux systems than x86 Linux systems (if you count all those ARM Linux cell phones as systems).

    The only valid reason to design in x86 these days is to run Windows. ARM is lower wattage and cheaper. Once you look at whole systems costs (battery etc) ARM comes out streets ahead. Most OSS can be readily redeployed on ARM. There is even an ARM Ubuntu.

    WinCE is a very limited architecture and has no support for SMP etc. It is basically a toy version of Windows.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  8. Don't underestimate ARM. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Modern ARMs are very good. Much, much better than the XScales. They can come with floating point units which are many times faster than software emulation and do not drain much power. Even under load they draw much less than the atom. Also, it looks like the modern cores come with OoO, something which is missing from the atom.

    Secondly, the ASUS EEE has shown that it may not br necessary to be x86 compatible any more. It is compatible, but it has sold many copies running Linux. That means that x86 compatibility is not required, since Linux runs well on many processor types.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
    1. Re:Don't underestimate ARM. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Informative

      The point is that the EEE has sold many, many units running Linux. This demonstrates that people are prepared to accept Linux and therefore x86 is unnecessary since Linux does not require it.

      Linux being OK implies that x86 is unnecessary.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  9. OoO ?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Modern cores come with OoO"... is that some weird new smiley or have they etched a copy of openoffice into the microcode prom?

    1. Re:OoO ?? by klingens · · Score: 5, Informative

      Out of Order execution

  10. I don't think so. by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 4, Informative
    I've been a WinCE OS-level developer for quite a few years (since 1.0) and currently have the low level dev tools for WinCE6 on a PC.

    No SMP in sight, not even in the emulator. If you know differently, I'd like to know.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
    1. Re:I don't think so. by jrumney · · Score: 3, Informative

      Most mobile devices run several ARM cores. Usually they are arranged as peripherals to the main CPU rather than working together as an SMP system. Typically the baseband (the bit that handles commincation with the cellular network) will have its own CPU in all but the lowest end devices, and increasingly graphics/video/audio processing is offloaded to a specialised chip. Nvidia are pulling this all into a single package, just as Marvell have with the PXA320, and TI have with several of their OMAP processors. In a typical configuration, it will appear as a single core to WinCE, so SMP support will not be needed, as the other cores are being used for specialised processing rather than as general CPUs. The PSP does something similar with its dual core MIPS processor.

  11. So what's the difference?? by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 3, Informative
    We have a multi-hundred MHz ARM in a cell phone/PDA these days, with a display controller and a bunch of peripherals built in to the same chip. That's enough to do an EEEPC - perhaps using q bit more RAM than is standard in a phone.

    If you were really keen you could stuff a few extra 1x2inch ARM cards in the box and have a Beowulf cluster in a sub-laptop box.

    The sub-notebook is nothing new. I have an old Psion7 (http://newth.net/psion7/index.html) that must be 6 or seven years old now. It was a bit slow, but only had a 100MHz StrongARM CPU. A re-jig with a modern 600MHz+ ARM would fly!

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  12. Okay, sometimes they get it right by accident. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When was the last time a Slashdot summary didn't have something wrong with it?

    The title of the referenced article is "Its not X86, but who cares?" There's no X86 in an ARM processor. It's a licensed design.

    It was too much for the Slashdot editor to read even the first 3 words of the summary?