Today, Linley Group posted their latest newsletter and it was pretty interesting.

In addition to the nice things the Linley Group has to say about Tegra 2 (which BTW IS actually in production now), they also have some interesting conjecture about the Apple A4 processor used in the new iPad.

This may prove to be the most likely scenario:
"A third idea is that the A4 uses the 1GHz Cortex-A8 CPU known as Hummingbird, which is designed by Intrinsity and manufactured by Samsung. This choice would allow Apple to continue working with Samsung, a long-time Apple supplier that makes the Cortex-A8 processor for the iPhone 3GS. Staying with the Cortex-A8 would also simplify software development. Samsung announced that the Hummingbird CPU had already been validated in silicon last July, putting it on track to be production-ready in time for the iPad launch."

People who handled the iPad remarked that it was very snappy - but well optimized software on a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor with an integrated memory controller could run pretty fast. The other speculation around the graphics core also seems fair "Samsung typically uses Imagination's PowerVR cores, and Apple is an investor in Imagination." But I'm surprised that Apple was showing native iPhone games on the bigger iPad screen using pixel doubling but without any antialiasing. Reports are that it looked pretty bad.

As I mentioned yesterday, the iPad has kicked off some interesting discussions. Here's one I found particularly interesting because it referenced some very interesting posts:
http://emergentbydesign.com/2010/02/01/699/

I have already envisioned a great app for wine cellars. But I could use that camera :(
I expect there will be (external?) camera/video options eventually.

For all the complaints about Flash - remember Flash 10.1 is coming soon with GPU acceleration which will help make Flash a much better experience - except for the iPhone and iPad.

Apple’s iPAD Announcement

There has been no end to the conversation surrounding the Apple iPAD, officially announced on January 28. For months, even years, before Steve Jobs walked out on the stage last Wednesday at the Yerba Buena Center and let the perverbial cat out of the bag, there had been rumors of an Apple tablet, a device that would fit between an iPhone and a Mac PC. That device is called an iPad and it will ship in 60 days (or so Apple promises).

For all the conjecture about what this device could do, Wednesday’s announcement was a let down, a revelation, and a relief. A relief, because there was now something substantial to talk about; a revelation for some because it could lead the way for a new class of computing device; and a let down, because the iPAD couldn’t live up to every ones expectations and some vendors were left off the parts list. The reaction by press, bloggers, and anyone who cares has been all over the spectrum. Some people consider it deeply flawed; some consider it the next personal computing revolution.

Clearly this is only the 1.0 version, there’s plenty of room for growth and adaption. A lot of the nit picking revolves around limitation of the iPhone operating system v3.2 such as no multitasking and other limitations such as no Adobe Flash support. Other hardware limitation come from Apple’s unique aesthetic (no USB ports, dongles for flash card reader) and possibly limitations from Apple’s first home-grown processor (no full 1080p HD support). Some of the hardware limitations were obviously cost driven (the 1024x768 display resolution and no camera). Still, people who have touched the iPad have been impressed by the overall design, even if it doesn’t stray far from Apple’s design language.

The IPS screen with its color quality, LED back light, and aspect ratio indicate that the iPad will be good for web browsing and digital magazines. It will also make a killer digital picture frame when it’s not on the go. For video – it will do well with standard definition, but as noted earlier it lacks the 1280 by 720 display required for entry level HD quality. HD movies will either be letterboxed or cropped. In addition, the iPad dock does not support HDMI HD output (unlike the Microsoft Zune HD).

While the tablet is often thought of as a “tweener device,” between a smartphone and a laptop, the tablet could wind up standing apart from both. As a home Internet access device, it is light enough to carry about easily and has the nearly instant-on characteristic of an appliance. The iPad will certainly be embraced by certain verticals such as home automation and home theater controllers.

With the 3G and optional Bluetooth keyboard, it can be sufficient for a road warrior. The access to text books could be a boon to students. The price point is just above netbooks, so it can appeal to many netbook users. While iPad lacks full Mac OSX support, Apple is porting a sub-set of iWork to it that should be sufficient for most people. This product has the best chance to jump-start the tablet market.
But, let us not forget there are significant limitations. The iPad (like its predecessor the iPhone) lacks Adobe Flash support, so some video sites (like Hulu) and web constructions will not play on the iPad; maybe that will change.

Some of the best thinking about the new iPad has come from developers who are beginning to envision extending existing applications and developing new applications.

With the iPad opening the door, there are also going to be a wide range of competitors, with different strengths and weaknesses. Certainly the two leading software contenders to the iPad’s iPhone OS will be Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Win7. Android is making a considerable splash in smartphones and is being extended to include tablets. The Android application store is 2 year behind Apple, but is making quick strides in adding new applications. The Microsoft Windows 7 operating system offers true desktop level support and applications. With Android and Windows 7, multitasking and Flash are supported and there will be many different hardware platforms supported at many different price points.

Now the clock is ticking – Apple announced the iPad would be available in 60 days from the announcement and a few competitors are beginning to come out. Soon, we will be awash in tablets. I am going to following this very closely, partly because my company NVIDIA has a horse in this race (the very capable Tegra 2) and partly because the tablet could be the most innovative computing product since the laptop. The tablet also brings to mind science fiction visions of the future of computing. I will definitely be buying one or two tablets this year to learn how it fits in with my life. It should make for an interesting year. I can hardly wait.

This Wednesday, Apple will announce something new. The bulk of the conjecture is that it will be a Tablet/slate computer. Every pundit has an opinion. I'm feeling left out of all the punditry.

So, here's my thoughts (not that you asked):
If there is an Apple Tablet/Slate (BTW, I have not seen a good definition of the category), It will be more like a large iPOD Touch - ARM-based, designed for media consumption and web browsing. But the difference is that it will also have a cellular 3G modem, GPS, along with WiFi and BlueTooth.

What I'm not sure of is whether it will have a camera on the back, front, both, or neither. I can make arguments for all. A camera on the back will be useful for videos and augmented reality; a camera on the front for personal videoconferencing and video blogging.

As such, the platform has a lot of possibilities - mount in a car dock for navigation w/realtime traffic, music, email. For the car, it should have voice commands and text to voice. It will have digital magazines, books, as well as play video and music.

My bet is that it will be ~10" in size to maximize screen area while not making it too big to carry anywhere. I also expect a nice high-resolution, multi-touch display (more than 1024x600).

While this version may not have the processor being developed by the former PA Semi team, eventually, it will.

I'd really like to see this product be the beginning of a new future in computer UI. Something like the future we've seen in Star Trek and Minority Report. And that's why Wednesday will have everyone on the edge of their seat - will we be transported to a shiny new future, or will we just get a big iPOD?

Writing has always been hard for me. Give me formula to solve, or a question to answer. But an essay, often brought me to a complete standstill. To some extent, I have gotten good enough to be passable, but it’s never my strong suit. I do find that the times from about 10:00PM onward is my most productive writing times. I don’t know if it’s a holdover from college days (with the last minute crunch to finish) or it has a more physiological origin. Either way, it makes writing for work difficult.

When I was at Microprocessor Report, there was a regular cadence that I could work to, often with nightly writing sessions. But at NVIDIA, it’s more right-now writing.
Then there’s Twitter, the equivalent to snack foods of writing. Short, often meaningless, snacks of sentences – no more than 140 characters long. There is some creativity trying to fit an idea into such a small space, but often real thought is lost as the premium is just brevity.

I wrote this item, specifically as a writing exercise – trying to get the writing juices flowing for another project or two. For that purpose, this seems to have worked out rather nicely. Hopefully, you’ll get to see the results soon.

Wow. It's been sooo long since I posted anything here. Bad, blogger :(
I blame Twitter ;)

I'm looking forward to my next PC build - an ION-based HTPC. I purchased from Amazon a ZOTEC ITX 330 ION motherboard with the dual-core Atom processor and an ITX case from AOpen. I plan to migrate my old HTPC in a much bigger Antec case into the small form-factor design.

A couple of issue remain - the AOpen case supports only one 2.5in hard drive and the old HTPC has a 3.5in HD. I'll have to buy a new notebook HD and migrate the OS. The other issue is that the AOpen case doesn't have space for an optical drive. Most of the ITX cases only support the slim optical drives. The existing HTPC uses a full sized dual HD format (BluRay and HD-DVD) from LG. The AOpen case offers a stacked option for a drive, but it's also for the slim drive and I can't find an online source that sells the stack anyway. So my option seems to be to use the optical drive in an external case. I' thinking using the XBox360 HD-DVD drive I have and replacing the drive with the dual-format drive. Not as elegant though.

I'll be posting pictures as the project gets going - hopefully this weekend.

On another note, I want to clarify my previous post. My posts on x86 and ARM are based on conversations I've had with former collegues from Microprocessor Report and are not based on any conversations at NVIDIA.

in a follow-up conversation with a colleague, I had a deeper discussion on the evolution of x86 cores and may modify my stance on its applicability to ultramobile devices. The problem I think an x86 faces is expectations, not capabilities. An x86 in a handset would run at 1GHz at best, which is perceived as slow in the PC space. The operating system would have to be optimized for efficiency and power, not just the silicon. The processor would still have to be very stripped down, and highly optimized for micropower management.


So it's possible, but not easy.

Last week, my friend and former colleague at Microprocessor Report Peter Glaskowsky, posted to his blog on CNet responding to a GigaOm story by Stacey Higginbotham. Peter called a post x86 world "preposterous." I disagree with Peter and here's what I posted:
I have to disagree. In order for Intel and x86 to be successful in the smartphone market, there needs to be a reasonable need to run the PC operating system and programs on a 3 inch screen. Otherwise, x86 compatibility is meaningless in a market where ARM-based mobile operating systems already dominate. The x86 instruction set and traditional Windows has no inherent advantage in the smartphone market. Apple has shown that a mobile operating system, even one based on a desktop core, needs a different user interface and application design.

To Peter’s point that instruction sets are not relevant, why must x86 win in the end? There are only three x86 vendors and only one of those is both financially healthy and shipping significant volume. While there are a few hundred million x86 processor shipped every year, there are many hundreds of millions of ARM-based designs in cell phone, microcontrollers, and the like shipped every year (over 10 billion since 1990) from many different companies, large and small, and in between. ARM is not some obscure processor, and it is used by many innovative companies (according to ARM, 60 partner companies were at MWC'09 http://www.arm.com/news/24583.html). For Intel (or AMD for that matter) to take x86 into cell phones is proof that if your only (successful) tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Intel’s agreement with TSMC to offer an Atom-based (Intel’s lowest end, lowest power x86 core) hard core for SoC design is Intel’s recognition that it needs to tap into the ARM ecosystem. The same ecosystem it failed to win over with XScale. Details of the agreement are still meager, but I’m concerned because it allows Intel to vet who and what will use the Atom core. That is not open enough for true innovation and competition.


In a related story, CNet’s Brook Cruthers asked if anyone would buy an Intel Smartphone:

But he didn't address battery life. There is no free lunch – more performance will use more energy. For an x86 processor to meet or beat an ARM-based SoC, it will require an extreme measure of very fine-grained power management. One of the power penalties of x86 is that the instruction decoder is complex with many special case conditions (in comparison to ARM) and increased complexity often translates into increased power.

Netbooks or mini-notebooks, no matter the name you call them, they are the hottest topic in the PC market. My company finally jumped into the fray with the ION platform which combines the very low power Atom processor with our very capable 9400 chipset. This is a very capably platform that would only get better when Intel releases a dual-core Atom processor. The aging 945 chipset from Intel is an anchor on the speedy little Atom processor.

From what I've gathered so far, the appeal of mini-notes is the combination of low price (about the cost of an iPOD touch, which makes you wonder about how high Apple's margins must be), connectivity (WiFi), battery life, and portability (small size and light weight).

The first version of the mini-notes, exemplified by the ASUS Eee PC, where an odd hot with Linux running on underclocked Celeron processors (the so-called 900MHz Celeron was underclocked to ~630MHz), small 7" displays and crammed keyboards. Still there was something attactive about a sub-$400 notebook you could take anywhere in a small bag (not quite pocketable). As the catagory has evolved the keyboards are bigger, the displays are bigger, and added more mainstream WinXP operating systems.

After shipping about 10 million units in 2008, the estimates for 2009 are up to 35 million units. On one hand, this is an opportunity to expand the markets for PCs by inproving the portability, but it's also a chance to crush the system prices to bargain basement levels. We might find that these PC's become as disposable as cell phones with a shortened life span. PC life spans had been increasing, but Netbooks could lower it again. So the margins aren't great, but the shorter replacement cycle could be a good thing for PC OEMs.

At least this economic recession has had one benefit - it has flushed out a number of financial cheats and scoundrels. The greedy have been found out and in many cases dealt with. Companies that used financial tricks have run out of options. Companies are going to have to make money the old fashioned way - by creating something of value. I've never understood a system that rewards people for moving money around without creating any real value. But that's just the engineer in me.

As the agony of AMD's spiral down continues, it couldn't have helped when the San Jose Mercury columnist Chris O'Brien put AMD on his list of companies that are in serious trouble. http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_11200791?nclick_check=1

Why did AMD fail to sustain its success after its triumph over Intel with Opteron and Athlon 64?

First off, AMD underestimated Intel's ability to rebound from the Pentium 4/Tejas debacle. Intel is a very resilient competitor with a lot of resources and a process and manufacturing group second to none. Intel, to some extend, was also lucky. It had a very sharp team in Israel that was working on lower power processors that could be enhanced for more performance. And so Conroe (Core 2 Duo) was born and the start of the long slide down for AMD.

AMD's management conceived of a grand idea of merging the raw performance of GPUs with the general purpose CPU (Fusion). It's an elegant and exciting concept. It was design to put AMD back ahead of Intel. The problem was that AMD grossly overpaid for the number 2 GPU vendor, ATI, and AMD's execution of the Fusion development concept has been slow and painful with a number of canceled versions.

Meanwhile, Intel has embarked on it's own GPU and its own version of Fusion. Right now, it looks like Intel might have a Fusion part in the market ahead of AMD. This was clearly a project that AMD could manage with too many new teams trying to work together. It just hasn't jelled.

So, AMD struggles to keep afloat by selling off anything it can. The latest part of the company to be jettisoned is the fabs. Before that it was Legarity, Spansion, Alchemy, and its PLD division.

Frankly, I think AMD's given up competing with Intel. AMD will try to hold onto enough market share to keep in business, but right now, there's very little upside until 2010 or 2011 when 32nm Bulldozer-based cores hit the market. No, instead, AMD management is going to try to eek out some minimal self respect by taking on NVIDIA as much as possible. But we're as resourceful and has adaptable as Intel. So I see no
opportunity there. And, afterall, ATI was rarely very profitable, so even a healthy ATI can't hold up a sick CPU business.

There a re a lot of companies that don't want AMD to go out of business, but at the same time, I don't see these companies digging into their own pockets to save AMD.

I listened to parts of AMD's Financial Analyst Day (gotta keep up with our competitors). First off, I have to say Rick Bergman's attempt to get a majority share of the graphics business by lumping in consoles was lame to the nth degree. Neither ATI nor NVIDIA controls or drives the sales of consoles. Also, those are contract designs from years ago that aren't even competitive with today's parts.

Other than that, as a former AMDer, I found Dirk's pitch on AMD's reason to play in the market, well uninspiring. It came down to: well the market needs an alternative to Intel, it might as well be us. How inspiring it is to say you're tired of losing money, or your soon to ex-CFO saying there was finally a change to cash flow positive for the first time under his watch. The message was not about leadership, but about competence. AMD wants to be a competent x86 microprocessor supplier. Good for them, I guess. The days of talking about 30% market share and kicking Intel's butt are over.

I guess the only sign of competitive juices is their competition with NVIDIA. They caught NVIDIA flat footed with an unconventional strategy. Remember how that played out with Intel? First AMD got the upper hand on Intel with Athlon64/Opteron, then got cocky, didn't bring anything new, and then got creamed by Conroe. It could happen again. AMD has not been able to sustain leadership - it moves in short spurts of real innovation, followed by years of mediocrity. I think AMD lost of some of the engineers willing to take risks - it became a customer driven company and lost the ability to inspire passion.

I was reading AMD's Pat Moorehead's blog post on mini-notebooks (Netbooks in Intel-speak; research companies are using the mini-notebook name). Pat's become Mr. Gadget for AMD, which is funny considering AMD is not really in the gadget business.

Back to mini-notes - Pat divides the use model into two types: at home and away from home. Pat's ideal "at-home" mini-note is really just a small notebook like a MacBook Air. The "away-from-home" mini-note is also overkill. I kinda agree with the 1024x768 display, but actually I'd like 1280x768 like my dear departed Crusoe-based Fujitsu P2110 (I still have the parts; I tried to figure out why it died, but couldn't diagnose the reason it wouldn't power up for more than a second or two). I like having a solid state drive because it make the mini-note more rugged to use - like a remote control or a handheld game console. If the content is going to be stored in the cloud or my home network storage - I don't need a large drive. I would like the same amount as an iPOD Touch - 16-32GB. To get to the aggressive price point- there are compromises that must be made. But it clear that consumers won't pay a premium for small size.

Looking over at my gadget collection, you can see that I own the original ASUS Eee PC 701 with the Linux OS and have used it. It's just to difficult to use on a regular basis. I'm planning to keep our wine list on it and it's still useful for casual browsing or chat.

I'm holding out for a mini-note with NVIDIA graphics :-)

On the eve of AMD's Financial Analyst Day, did anyone find it odd that Intel decided to release its lower guidance? If that doesn't scare the bejesus out of the financial analysts, I don't know what will. That's just plain mean (of Intel).

I pause from the "usual" processor technology talk, to address another topic that's been a favorite interest of mine since grade school: space travel. Buzz Aldrin thinks that we should send the first explorers to Mars on a one-way trip to the red planet:
http://www.physorg.com/news143972922.html

I can't completely agree with him. Much like the early plot of Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, the first explorers should return to Earth in order to be able to relate the experience to the world. Otherwise, I think the exploits of the Mars explorers will be too remote, too unreal, to the people who must fund supply missions. Only when we have the technology to make the "settlers" self sufficient, should we consider the one-way trip option.

What we should be investing in is better robotic AI ("Open the pod bay doors, Hal") and the underlying technology needed for colonization. Both these endeavors could have additional benefits here on Earth.

I hope I live long enough to see the pictures of Man on Mars. Just going there and not colonizing is a waste of money. Look at what happened when we went to the Moon - close to 40 years later and we haven't been back.

Sorry for the lack of posts - worklife and funlife has been busy. Frankly, not really much new to report on the processor front. The Larrabee watch continues - still no sign of real silicon.

The AMD "asset smart" split was announced and it didn't help the stock much. A lot has been written about it, although the present economic crisis has overshadowed it. I see it as mixed news. The infusion of more capital should help AMD compete with Intel - more money for the fabs will build the capacity AMD can't afford to fund itself. But you still have a foundry completely dependent on AMD for its revenue and AMD is almost completely dependent on the foundry company for its silicon. It will take at least 2 years for the foundry company to build up a reasonable portfolio of processes that will attract other customers (it needs bulk silicon). Most importantly, the foundry company will have to learn a new mindset as a foundry, not just a captive fab. IBM made that transition, but it is still not a flexible and cost effective as TSMC.

I'm on the organizing committee of a conference called Hot Chips. Our last conference included a very funny panel from a number of well known chip designers, analysts, and a legendary educator. You can see a shortened version of the panel here:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/video?id=562

Well, it's not quite a month since my last post. For all you Catholics out there, there will be a familiar ring to that admission.

So I need to keep this blog posting going. The problem, as usual, is time, compounded by short post on Twitter. Well, that plus the fact I have only one proven reader, maybe two. Well, that's a classic chicken and egg situation - I might get more readers if I posted regular and posted interesting things.

WRT to interesting things, there's a lot of interest in the "Godson" processor from the Chinese Academy of Science. Previous versions were just a MIPS-compatible processors for very low cost PC-like devices. But then everyone decided the low-cost PC model was actually a growth opportunity, so the market became more interesting (although the size is still questionable). On top of that, the Godson-3, introduced at Hot Chips 20, is designed with software emulation of the x86 instruction set in mind. The translation layer is still under development, but say the magic word "x86" and everybody wants to know about it and suddenly it's an Intel competitor. Not a place that I would strive for.

Well, it's still isn't available for testing, so we'll have to wait to see how good it is.

Now for something close to my heart: microprocessors. I have a question for you: is microprocessor design dying? I ask, because chips like Intel's Atom are perceived as innovative, when, in fact, Atom is a through back design. An analyst was asked by a publication is he thought Atom would be one of the innovations of the year. Atom is dual-issue, in-order design where low power trumps performance. The architecture is stripped down and basic, not innovative. The innovation is in the marketing of it.

Another piece of evidence: MIPS is planning as layoff. It's been pretty obvious that MIPS ran out of ideas and has been coasting on the designs of Cavium and RMI to keep it relevant and setup boxes and PS2 for revenue. It was destined to be squeezed by POWER from above and Arm from below, but MIPS gave in with a whimper, not a real fight.

The big iron guys like IBM and Sun still keep moving along, but the excitement now comes from the promise of many smaller cores working together (what Sun calls Throughput Computing) with processors like Niagara and Larrabee, only there's this problem with creating mainstream software for many-core processors. And if the goal IS more cores/mm2, those cores are going to be rather simple in design (like the x86 cores in Larrabee).

So, we dump the problem onto the programmers and sit back and yell: "What's the problem? Can't you programmers figure out how to split that code over a bunch of cores? What's so hard about that?"

Well for graphics, it isn't too tough, because there's all these pixel to work on in parallel. It's also reasonably well known in data base, web serving, and some super-computer programming. But it's still going to be a challenge for many other applications.

Then again, maybe we have to ask: are processors already good enough for typical client workloads? Therefore, we don't need particularly powerful client microprocessors, just really good Internet connectivity to cloud computing and low power. Gamers and professional content creators will be the lone users of powerful client computers. Like with cars, everybody is worried about gas mileage today and only a few crazies still care about performance.

I'm just asking.