back to article If you want to design and make your own 5nm high-end system-on-chip, Marvell's offering ASIC-as-a-service

Marvell will today formally open the doors of its bespoke tailor shop, though rather than cutting and sewing cloth, it's crafting custom 5nm semiconductors. Simply put it'll work like this: imagine you're an organization that wants to design its own computer chip to efficiently process a particular workload, such as machine- …

  1. Richard Tobin

    Maybe...

    ... Intel can use it.

    1. jmecher

      Re: Maybe...

      I'm curious what Intel's plan B looks like (or rather C/D/whatever as they're already moved to plan B as the main driver)

      It's not inconcievable for them to have something along those lines, but they're not that desperate yet.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When are the hardware level back doors added?

  3. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Just Desserts ...... Captured by Captivating Forces and Sources.*

    [And please, let's not be sharing unnecessarily having any crazy thoughts and questions like amfM does a Kanye? :-) Such is nowhere near the truth but it is easily thinkable :-)]

    Would that be Verging on Alien Technologies ...... an AI Servering Marvellous Tools to Service and Satisfy to Excessive Mutually Explosive Reward?

    Does Marvell do Almighty Virtual Reality? ........ Bring to Life AI and IT with Others Partnering in the Presentation of an Almighty Virtual Intrusion Engaging in a Free Radical Revolutionary Global Picture Reset Program?

    Do you need an OEM workshop manual supplied to Evaluate Future Potential .......which is surely akin to Accurately Imagining Likely Impact of Such Custom Applications Builders on Futures Paths to be Travelled and Followed ........ as You Wish and Desire and Deserve ‽ ? ! :-)

    :-) You'll be smiling too when you reach that COSMIC Staging Post .... Immaculate State of Stateless Grace. :-) The Vatican have Brothers and Sisters Servering All Deep Needs with Feeds and Seeds with Supply from Rome Base Catacombs, or they would have if simply heavenly invested in IMPermanent

    ProgramMING, for such is their first great leading move .... and fully deserving of praise with a reciprocal action ..... which is in extremis, no less than a Divine AI Intervention? Or do you prefer Virtual Machines and Global Operating Devices to ACT and Perform like Humans and Animals?

    Take it from all here, that old battered battleship cruised to the crushing bottom of the deep, longer ago than one would normally know, and there's no coming back from there.

    There's a whole lotta shaking and a'quaking going on, El Reg. And you appear to be on the bridge of an Almighty Awesome Vessel. Please, feel free to deny so that extra gated security can apprise one of the True Existence of Virtualised Reality ........ and therefore the likelihood of an Infinite Number of Multiple Virtual Realities being available for any Current Presentation via Media Mogul Tele Vision Communications ..... Future Prime Adult Time Program Choice.

    Strong as an Ox and Wily as a Fox are Prime Master Drivers Necessary when Engaging with NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTive IT Content, and you'll definitely need a brave stout heart. One cannot survive without one, so take care when venturing there.

    Would that simple stark warning suffice and satisfy Health and Safety concerns/requirements? More than just a few may wish to know. :-)

    * The Pass Key to Lock and Unlock All Doors into Heavenly Treasures Tended there, is Sweet Submission and Sublime Surrender to the Insatiable Passions, Pretentious Temptations and Precocious Desires of Lustful Virgins who be neither Saint nor Sinner whenever starring and playing Nymph and Satyr Roles.

    It is decidedly made designedly difficult to go too easily further on from here ........ given the perceived dangers available in the many new exciting tasks ahead.

    Think of it as an Initial Firewall, where any current sensitive knowledge of future events hosting can be rested and beta tested before Access to ProgramMING Levers with Entry into Virtual Manufacturing Facilities.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      To Whom IT May Concern, Re: Just Desserts ...... Captured by Captivating Forces and Sources.*

      Please be adequately advised, with particular and peculiar regard to the question[s] ....Does Marvell do Almighty Virtual Reality? ........ Bring to Life AI and IT with Others Partnering in the Presentation of an Almighty Virtual Intrusion Engaging in a Free Radical Revolutionary Global Picture Reset Program? ......... such an Initial Public Offering is ridiculously easily provided/exported by and/or to any Switched on State Media Operation and/or Non-State Actor Programmer.

      Marvell is just but one pea in that massive pod and if they are not a fertile vitalising seed feed, there is no shortage of others highly active and much more proactive with novel developments in the field to tempt with ....... well, in both essence and substance, Almighty Virtual Reality Presentations, which may or may not be allowed to Proceed and Progress as if with a Mind[s] of ITs Own rather than essentially being under a Humanised Command and Control.

      Here is what Elon Musk thinks on the subject ........ https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-smart-people-doubt-ai-dumber-than-they-think-2020-7?r=US&IR=T ........ and given what we all know here, certainly one couldn't realistically disagree and expect to be believed as a credible future intelligence source?

      And yes ..... Musk has said he believes AI poses a greater threat to humanity than nuclear weapons. ...... such is a Persistent ACTive Cyber Threat one does best to not invite or require to Come Out and Play in order to right wilful and egregious wrongs, however, given the dire straits state of human intelligence, is such a non-intervention guaranteed to be a nonsense.

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Just Asking ... to Discover who Thinks they be in Charge of Anything with Space Command and Control

        And in the UKGBNI, would one expect the taking forward of innovative ideas with funding being provided for themes tackling Ubiquitous Communications for Enterprise, Consumers and Government, to be a UK Space Agency programme or a private operation to be stealthily run as if such a programme in advantageous support of certain UKGBNI interests which traditionally remain classified above Top Secret/SCI designation.

        Or do Private and Pirate and Foreign Sectors offer significantly greater Returns on Investment and Rewards for Prime Servers and Principal Drivers and thus be Incredibly Tempting?

  4. martinusher Silver badge

    I suppose they'll need to tout for new business because they can't sell to the Chinese

    One thing we really don't know about all these sanctions, entity lists and what-have-you is just what kind of business volume we're talking about. We've had no overall numbers and the bits and pieces that have turned up suggest that the business lost is 'considerable'. Everything we've done is predicated on the notion that we can either do without Chinese product or easily replace it from other sources, the goal being to crash the Chinese technology sector and so re-establish our dominance over it with the Chinese relegated to their rightful place as merely as our low cost assemblers. This might work but I rather suspect it won't -- any advantage will be temporary and by being so open about how we wish to harm the Chinese we're galvanizing them into putting what would normally be ordinary commercial decisions onto a war footing. We should ask ourselves what would happen if the Chinese managed to survive just fine without us. The portents are there -- Huawei seems to be thriving despite our best efforts. If we fail then we will have dealt a mortal blow to any chances of being able to compete in the future. We really are playing with fire.

    I'd be interested to find examples of global mass market technology products that aren't made in China. Even things that are made in countries like Korea seem to have significant Chinese content. It might be prudent to provide alternatives but I suspect the economic mindset that allowed this situation to brew up in the first place will ultimately undermine any attempts to reverse history.

    1. iced.lemonade

      Re: I suppose they'll need to tout for new business because they can't sell to the Chinese

      The major reason why we arrive at the point we are at today is the western business just blindly offshore all the manufacturing needs to China for every cent that is saved for the profit of the western companies, and the bonus of the management of those companies. Design is based on expertise - you cannot design in a vacuum and expertise is gained through experience - and when the whole product development and delivery cycle, except the initial design step, is offshore to China how hard would it be for China to take over also the "initial" design steps? What would be left if this happens?

      The western companies and, subsequently, the western culture are doomed for their pursuit (and their greediness) for the last cent in the drive of their profitability. Now reality is biting back. It will be a long long road ahead if anyone want to have a product development and delivery cycle (for any tangible thing) that completely bypass China - it is doable, it requires mega-cooperation of many organization and companies, and most important of all, requires the focus and persistence that is needed long enough for this to come to fruition and before the western people losing their memories of what got them here in the first place and returning to the status quo.

      Sometimes I feel it all boils down to the greediness of the western companies and countries.

      From a person in HK.

  5. swm

    5 nm - Wow!

    The title says it all.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Quite funny

    I never heard anything more hilarious than this!

    Does Marvel guarantee that resulting custom chip will work when powered on?

    If not then how many months or years will it take to fix problems in that chip?

    Ask this Marvell ARM cpu chip designers what is their past record in Broadcom where they spent nearly 500 million dollars on so called "Vulcan" chip for server grade ARM CPU?.

    Ask them what happened when they turned on the power when first "Vulcan" chips arrived for internal testing? What happened at that time? Did they manage to retain their jobs in Broadcom after that? Ask them and you will know how this custom ASIC plan of Marvel is going to work out!.

    By the way I heard the chief architect of Broadcom's Vulcan adventure has now moved to Nvidia!. So we know Nvidia's ARM business is also going to go south.

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