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AMD Licenses 64-bit Processor Design From ARM
angry tapir writes "AMD has announced it will sell ARM-based server processors in 2014, ending its exclusive commitment to the x86 architecture and adding a new dimension to its decades-old battle with Intel. AMD will license a 64-bit processor design from ARM and combine it with the Freedom Fabric interconnect technology it acquired when it bought SeaMicro earlier this year."
The panel discussion that accompanied the AMD news conference was absolutely painful to watch. The only thing I learned is how completely clueless the CxOs of the 'cloud computing era' really are. Seeing company officers from Dell, RedHat and Facebook drool allover themselves like that was yet another painful lesson that the fratboys of the world have turned the tech industry into their drunken biatch.
x86-64 and 64-bit ARM on the same chip?
I can see this being a remarkable selling point for Windows devices if both ARM and x86 code can execute on the same device without emulation.
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x86/AMD64 is overkill for many server functions.
It will be interesting to see if chips appear optimized for different functions.
For example hardware sql accelerators or massive i/o for file serving.
Since many hardware raid controllers are nothing but ARM cores anyway it would be interesting to see multiple cores, some used as RAID controllers and some more advanced cores for the os and file serving with a 10GB lan controller all on one chip.
Add power, drives and Ram and have a killer file server.
Welcome to the club, AMD !
Unlike the X86 community, there are so many more competitors in the ARMs camp - companies such as TI and Broadcom from USA, Samsung from Korea, Hitachi from Japan, Allwinner from China, which produces $7 ARM-based SoCs.
AMD, you can't even compete against ONE company in the x86 arena - Intel.
Are you sure you can complete against the whole slew of them, this time??
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I'm sure this is just AMD hedging their bets against multiple processor ISAs. There are places where ARM is better than x86/x86-64, so it makes sense to try and dominate those niches. It falls in line perfectly with AMD being a less expensive alternative to Intel.
Given that Intel is trying to wind down its StrongARM line it inherited from DEC, AMD may see the ARM line as a place where it can finally be top dog. It has the expertise to give Broadcom, TI and Samsung a run for their money.
Taking a really big drink from the hypothetical Kool-Aid, I could see ARM64 processors being used as x86-64 replacements in palmtops and laptops. There are a couple of x86 to ARM translators on the market, which would solve the binary compatibility issue. I used FX!32 back during the NT4 and NT5beta days with my DEC workstation, and it made emulated binaries about 90% as fast as native. With advances in JITC translators and a cleanup of the x86-64 ISA to make it closer to meeting Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements, I could see a good modern translator being 95+% as fast as native x86-64 code.
I've been expecting Apple to churn out a Power Book with an ARM processor and a binary translator. They did it with m68K -> PPC and PPC -> x86, so I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see x86 -> ARM. Now imagine it with an AMD ARM64 SoC at the heart of it.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Intel had a team working on ARM ISA designs as a contingency plan, but I highly doubt they'd transition to ARM unless x86 was facing virtual annihilation. They're well aware that if they start releasing ARM chips, the whole industry will much more quickly transition away from x86. There's no way they would willingly destroy their extremely profitable, high-margin x86 business.
Intel will be doing the same thing in 3... 2... 1... Just like missing the 64-bit era with Itanium, it is missing he mobile era with Atom.
What are you even talking about? Since when did Intel miss the "64 bit era" as you put it? Sure, Itanium was a failure and Intel sunk billions of dollars trying to make it work. However, Intel could afford that mistake and still continue chugging along. As things stand today, Intel absolutely dominates the 64 bit market. In fact, except for Intel, AMD, and the IBM Power chips, there is no other game in town as far as 64 bit is concerned, and in this market, Intel probably has 80% or 90% market share, and has the best performance and performance per watt numbers.
So, I'm not sure which 64 bit era you are talking about, and how Intel missed it.
As far as Atom is concerned, yes, Intel is struggling quite a bit. However, Intel is trying to scale down its power consumption while ARM is trying to scale up its performance. Sooner or later, the two shall meet and it will be a very interesting battle. I wouldn't write off Intel so soon yet. In fact, the upcoming Clovertrail based Windows 8 tablets should be a very interesting launch. Take a look at the Thinkpad Tablet 2 for example. It should be a very interesting tablet for corporate customers or for users who want x86 along with Windows 8 Pro along with 3G and LTE mobility and a full-size USB port and with 8-9 hrs battery life.
I'm not saying Intel will win or lose, and it needs be relentless in improving power efficiency to even be a viable alternative to ARM. However, to say that Atom has already lost the race is a bit premature.
Uhh...what great chips? The Thubans were good, but everything based on Bulldozer just blows through power while having terrible IPC, thanks to having shared integer and floating point units. If they were to be honest the "modules" would be treated as single cores with hardware assisted hyperthreading, because the benches show that is a hell of a lot closer to what they are than to true cores. Hell since the release of BD they don't even have a single slot anymore on Tom's Hardware "Best Gaming CPU" list whereas they used to pretty much OWN everything under $200. Hell look at how badly their new chips rate compared to even their old chips, with not only the X6 but no less than TWO of the X4s, the 980 and 955, scoring better than their new FX 8120. So I'm sorry, this is coming from someone who has been building AMD exclusively since i heard about the OEM bribery, but the new chips? Just not good.
And sadly ARM isn't gonna save them either, they are too late to the game and from the looks of it ARM simply isn't gonna scale while keeping its lower power budget. Just look at how companies like Nvidia, that have been sinking a ton into ARM, are having to use ever more cores to get the performance up, it just doesn't scale. And since Intel has the fabs they can get to the lower sizes quicker, and their chips are frankly getting lower powered all the time. A 55w Ivy will frankly curbstomp a 125w Piledriver and with servers while there are some loads you can run without the IPC frankly there are a LOT more loads where you'll need that IPC and AMD just doesn't have it, and with electricity costs and cooling costs? It really don't look good for AMD, damned I wish it weren't true but it is what it is, AMD is in REAL bad shape right now.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Maybe the new direction is going to be heterogeneous computing. We're already seeing AMD and Intel combine x86 and a GPU on one die; maybe AMD will try to combine everything and have a couple of ARM cores for low-power tasks, a couple of Bulldozer modules for more intensive tasks, all combined with their GPU.
In fact AMD has an amazing technology portfolio. Having graphics chip (ATI Division), the hypertransport technology and AMD64, we can expect some interesting developments
They were designed for low power operation because the engineers were impressed with the 6502's efficiency.
Nope. They were designed for low power so that they could use cheap plastic packaging instead of expensive ceramic packaging.
SJW n. One who posts facts.