Posts by P0l0nium 193 publicly visible posts • joined 24 May 2013
In a world where money is free because they've been printing it for years then a whole load of stupid investments start to look sensible.
"The plan" is to take ARM's nice revenue stream and use it to pay virtually zero interest on the loan and pocket the rest.
Amusingly... this acquisition of the world's most successful chip company is about half financed by the sale of a "freemium" phone game... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Clans
Now that's "added value" :-)
More Guns!!! Without guns how will they defend their chickens from marauding neighbours and feral dogs??
The real "need" in the 3rd World is "Rule of Law" and some leaders who can answer the question "Why are you in charge ?" without answering:
a) Because I have a large private army.
b) Because I know what's best for you.
c) God put me here.
FYI ... There is no "power efficiency of ARM vs x86"
In servers X86 wins hands down on "efficiency" .. even on an equivalent process.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9956/the-silver-lining-of-the-late-amd-opteron-a1100-arrival/2
And its been possible to make a power competitive X86 smartphone for the past 2 generations
http://www.trustedreviews.com/motorola-razr-i-review
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9251/the-asus-zenfone-2-review/3
Intel's problem is not "power efficiency" ... Its the management, the culture and the inability to cut corners without screwing up !!
FYI ... It is perfectly possible to make a power-competitive X86 smartphone and it has been for the past 2 generations.
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/mobile-phones/52109/motorola-razr-i-review
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9251/the-asus-zenfone-2-review
And the SAME X86 CORES at the SAME POWER LEVELS offer superior performance per watt over the ARM cores in servers - even before the advent of Intel's 14nm server chips.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8357/exploring-the-low-end-and-micro-server-platforms/17
Intel's problem is not the architecture ... its the management.
FYI ... X86 has been "RISC" since the "Ppro" in 1999
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_instruction_set_computing
"While early RISC designs differed significantly from contemporary CISC designs, by 2000 the highest performing CPUs in the RISC line were almost indistinguishable from the highest performing CPUs in the CISC line"
So your logic disappears in a puff of smoke, no ?? But that doesn't stop you posting nonsense on here, does it ??
"The X86 business is fading away....."
Sure it is ... with 98% of the server market and about 100% of the fastest growing "consumption device" sector there is : "premium ultramobile" AKA "convertibles". All done with a 62% gross margin.
While phone and tablet markets are stagnant.
http://www.cnet.com/news/tech-will-be-anemic-in-2016-gartner-predicts/
I suspect that VW will get "off the hook" here by demonstrating :
a) That all manufacturers do the same thing.
b) Producing a letter from the regulator in response to the question
"Is it OK if we pass your stupid tests like THIS ??".
Ask yourself the question ... Why did NO COMPETITOR test VW's cars that were stealing their market share ??
Its not clear to me that any laws have been broken here ...
If the rules said "You have to pass this test" then they did exactly that and the fault lies with the regulator for designing a stupid test that's easy to pass with an unclean engine.
And VW could argue that they didn't ship any "non compliant" vehicles because they ALL did the same thing and they would ALL have passed the stupid test.
I predict a plague of lawyers !!!
"Intel likes to sell in the overpriced segment."
WTF ??? Are you from the same tribe that keeps slagging Intel off for selling tablet parts below cost and undercutting AMD in the "entry level notebook" segment?
So wake me up when Samsung, Apple, Qualcomm or Nvidia get a share of the server market that exceeds Intel's share of "mobile" :-)
I surely hope these "Investors" aren't managing MY pension pot :-)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8357/exploring-the-low-end-and-micro-server-platforms/18
Which concludes :
"It is unfortunate that AppliedMicro's presentations have created inflated expectations."
And the same is true of every "ARM server" Powerpoint I have ever seen.
Q: So why don' t they shut down the internet feeds to ISIS in Syria and Iraq??
A: Because they don't want to!
Q: Why don't they want to ?
Well lets speculate, shall we ??
.... Because they're happy with the flow of propaganda and :
.... They need the public to endorse intervention and :
.... They realise that the Sunni Oligarchs are a spent force so;
.... They're making friends with the Iranians and :
.... They want the Sunnis out of the way :
Great plan! , where do I sign up for my share ??
The reason they draw 1/10th the power is that they do less than 1/10th of the work.
"Fast enough and cheap" isn't going to overcome faster and cheaper parts like this at 2W per core.
http://ark.intel.com/products/77980/Intel-Atom-Processor-C2530-2M-Cache-1_70-GHz
Which has been on the market for 18 months and can be made for $7 (Its a glorified tablet chip with the peripherals removed).
Would you invest your pension pot in a head to head against that knowing that something nearly 2X as good just got launched yesterday.
Intel will indeed react on price and "minimum price" is dictated by silicon area.
As an example of how the economics work against people like Applied Micro:
The world's most efficient server chip (Intel's Avoton C2730) is about 90sqm on 22nm and it costs about $7 to make. The moment Xgene2 appears Intel will bomb the price of that part to $7.50.
(600 good die from a $3000 wafer plus $2 assembly/test). Its above "marginal cost" so its legal.
Xgene invested in order to achieve 'server class margins" of 80 percent and they will in fact achieve "break-even" if they're lucky.
All they will achieve is to keep Intel "honest" at the low end and will fail to recoup their investment.
All 14nm processes are not created equal :-)
http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Cell-SizeComparison.png
And when was the last time YOU bought a server with the primary goal of it being $200 cheaper than the power-guzzling slower alternative?
In the past year the "ARM Server" redux has gone from "low power" to "more integration" to "Cheaper" to "Just wait til the software catches up".
This whole ARM server thing is riding the 4 year old myth of "superior smartphone power levels".
It sucks, its always sucked and its time for it to die.
When I first heard the term "Universal Credit" I thought;
"Finally... They're going to save money by closing down the entire "wurk and penshun" bureaucracy and they'll simply give every adult £100 a week.
Anyone who can't live on £100 a week can visit a soup-kitchen".
But no, the madness continues.
So how would YOU decide who gets to travel in one of the limited available cabs and how would you motivate more taxis to service the demand ???
Ministry of taxis ??
Lots of surplus taxis circling "just in case" ??
But granted, there needs to be an "emergency plan" and it seems Uber invented one after about 30 mins.
That is exactly the market Intel are gunning for. :-)
1 of these for every policeman with a real-time video/data link to the control room.
Add in Fire and Ambulance in the entire developed world and the TAM is about 10M units.
It'll probably be done with SOFIA 3G - 2X Silvermont cores with on-board modem.
"x86 architecture is now exceedingly inefficient in the way it handles instructions"
So ask yourself ... If its so damned inefficient then why is it the dominant server architecture??
Why is it on a par with all but the most exotic ARM based tablet SOCs??
Why are 80 percent of Chromebooks X86 based??
Why are 85 percent of the worlds top500 supercomputers X86 based ??
Answer : because its NOT "exceedingly inefficient" by any reasonable measure.
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