* Posts by potato_chips

8 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jul 2020

Could RISC-V become a force in high performance computing?

potato_chips

Those apples are oranges

Intel and AMD both share the same instruction set (although support for extensions may differ between processors) - RISC-V and Arm are two different instruction sets.

RISC-V defines an ISA + allows you to add your own instructions. Some open-source HW designs are available.

Arm defines an ISA + allows you to add your own instructions on M-class processors. You can design your own core if you have an architecture license or license one of Arm's own designs (which is what most companies do).

As Arm plays chicken with Qualcomm, both have a lot to lose

potato_chips

Two big companies?

Despite the fact that Arm is everywhere, Arm is nowhere near as big as qualcomm. Qualcomm dwarfs Arm in terms of number of employees and revenues. This really is a case of a big thug pushing around smaller supplier because they think they can get away with it for all the reasons you cited in the article.

Arm cannot afford not to fight back as if it doesn't it effectively sends the message to all it's partners that they don't need to take their licensing agreements seriously. What would that mean for Arm's future revenues, IPO prospects?

Intel reminds everyone it's still cooking away on more PC processors

potato_chips

Re: 7nm Has Been "Ready" for Years

"voluntary unpaid leave" is not being laid-off - said the villagers to the boy who cried wolf.

Alibaba, Tencent enlisted to help sanction-weary China build RISC-V chips

potato_chips

Re: Good, I like RISC-V

You like RISC-V. Great, but what to you like about it? What's in the ISA that has made it a better engineering fit for you?

Just refrain from mentioning any particular implementations because the implementations are not what characterise the RISC-V architecture - the only thing that characterises the architecture is the ISA. All the rest is microarchitecture (i.e. chip circuitry) and you can find good and bad microarchitectures for all the dominant ISAs.

Think Korean chipmakers will buy Arm? Think again

potato_chips

Nothing to see here

"The current Arm IPO plan has gone through its own trouble"

If deciding where to list qualifies as trouble then every IPO ever done has been in trouble FFS.

Tencent has its Meta moment as CEO Pony Ma outlines 'immersive convergence'

potato_chips

Metaverse shmetaverse

I've never thought of myself as a luddite but while I do see a certain number of industrial applications for digital twins, for the rest of us this just stinks of horse shit to me.

Several studies have shown that overall, Facebook makes its users sadder. Are these (sometimes socially defective) tech tycoons really the best people to be listening to regarding what our future human interactions should look like? Dial back the tech, let's learn how to treat each other like human beings again before finding new ways to take our dysfunctionalities on-line.

SiFive RISC-V CPU cores to power NASA's next spaceflight computer

potato_chips
Facepalm

Re: The wait is over.

Killer app, really?

They're just replacing an ancient CPU technology with a more modern one and they chose the RISC-V architecture in the hope that it will still be in use 20 years from now.

Otherwise, there's nothing about RISC-V that makes it an enabling technology for computing in space. But even if there was, how is that relevant for earth bound computing, where the vast majority of computing happens? Furthermore, RISC-V doesn't have a "credibility" problem that needs fixing, it just doesn't have such a developed eco-system as Arm/x86, yet, and NASA won't fix that.

Russia tested satellite-to-satellite shooter, say UK and USA

potato_chips
Alien

Thanks for stepping up Russia

At least someone will have the kit to defend us when the aliens come back.