Sign up for our Technology Newsletter 
Intel Links Up With Rockchip
Intel has joined forces with Chinese chip design firm Rockchip to develop next generation processors for the tablet market based on Intel Atom core technology and integrating 3G broadband communications.
Under the terms of the agreement, Intel and Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics (Rockchip) will work together on an Intel branded mobile system on chip (SoC) processor with the intention of enabling a range of entry-level Android tablets.
The chip is expected to ship in the first half of 2015, according to Intel, and will be based on a quad-core Atom processor design integrated with Intel’s 3G modem technology, which the firm gained through its acquisition of Infineon Technologies in 2010.
Rockchip, which is expected to contribute to the integrated graphics technology, will also help Intel bring the product to market faster than might otherwise be the case. The firm is a leading fabless semiconductor design company and already develops mobile SoCs, although its present designs are largely focused around the ARM architecture.
The agreement builds on announcements Intel made at an investor relations day last year, where chief executive Brian Krzanich disclosed the Intel Sofia family, of which the latest chip will form part, and conceded that the chipmaker needed to become more agile in order to gain traction in entry-level markets.
“The strategic agreement with Rockchip is an example of Intel’s commitment to take pragmatic and different approaches to grow our presence in the global mobile market by more quickly delivering a broader portfolio of Intel architecture and communications technology solutions,” Krzanich said.
With this announcement, the Intel Sofia family comprises three products, which are not shipping yet.
A dual-core 3G version is slated for the fourth quarter this year, the quad-core 3G version is due in the first half of 2015, and a version with 4G/LTE communication is also due in the first half of next year.
Can MediTek Win With Amazon?
According to the Taiwan Economic Daily, the chipmaker will supply SoCs for upcoming Amazon tablets. Details are sketchy and it is unclear whether MediaTek has landed an order for all Kindle Fire SKUs or just one of them. The paper claims MediaTek will start shipping the chips later this year, but we have no way of confirming or denying the report.
The chip in question appears to be the MT8135. It is a mid-range big.LITTLE part announced last year and it features two Cortex A15 and two Cortex A7 CPU cores. The GPU comes from Imagination and it’s the relatively fresh PowerVR G6200. The GPU is capable of churning out 83.2 GFLOPS at 650MHz, depending on the configuration of course.
It sounds like a decent all-round SoC, with a substantially faster GPU than previous MediaTek offerings in the same segment, which were powered by venerable SGX 54x and Mali 400/450 GPUs.
Information is limited and we can’t say for sure whether or not MediaTek actually landed the deal, or whether the deal includes more than a single Kindle Fire SKU. If true, it is a big coup for the Taiwan-based chipmaker, as Amazon ships up to two million Kindle tablets each quarter.
It would also help MediaTek’s ambitious tablet plans. The company hopes to double shipments of tablet-centric SoC products this year.
ARM To Focus On 64-bit SoC
ARM announced its first 64-bit cores a while ago and SoC makers have already rolled out several 64-bit designs. However, apart from Apple nobody has consumer oriented 64-bit ARM devices on the market just yet. They are slowly starting to show up and ARM says the transition to 64-bit parts is accelerating. However, the first wave of 64-bit ARM parts is not going after the high-end market.
Is 64-bit support on entry-level SoCs just a gimmick?
This trend raises a rather obvious question – are low end ARMv8 parts just a marketing gimmick, or do they really offer a significant performance gain? There is no straight answer at this point. It will depend on Google and chipmakers themselves, as well as phonemakers.
Qualcomm announced its first 64-bit part late last year. The Snapdragon 410 won’t turn many heads. It is going after $150 phones and it is based on Cortex A53 cores. It also has LTE, which makes it rather interesting.
MediaTek is taking a similar approach. Its quad-core MT6732 and octa-core MT6752 parts are Cortex A53 designs, too. Both sport LTE connectivity.
Qualcomm and MediaTek appear to be going after the same market – $100 to $150 phones with LTE and quad-core 64-bit stickers on the box. Marketers should like the idea, as they’re getting a few good buzzwords for entry-level gear.
However, we still don’t know much about their real-world performance. Don’t expect anything spectacular. The Cortex A53 is basically the 64-bit successor to the frugal Cortex A7. The A53 has a bit more cache, 40-bit physical addresses and it ends up a bit faster than the A7, but not by much. ARM says the A7 delivers 1.9DMIPS/MHz per core, while the A53 churns out 2.3DMIPS/MHz. That puts it in the ballpark of the good old Cortex A9. The first consumer oriented quad-core Cortex A9 part was Nvidia’s Tegra 3, so in theory a Cortex A53 quad-core could be as fast as a Tegra 3 clock-for-clock, but at 28nm we should see somewhat higher clocks, along with better graphics.
That’s not bad for $100 to $150 devices. LTE support is just the icing on the cake. Keep in mind that the Cortex A7 is ARM’s most efficient 32-bit core, hence we expect nothing less from the Cortex A53.
The Cortex A57 conundrum
Speaking to CNET’s Brooke Crothers, ARM executive vice president of corporate strategy Tom Lantzsch said the company was surprised by strong demand for 64-bit designs.
“Certainly, we’ve had big uptick in demand for mobile 64-bit products. We’ve seen this with our [Cortex] A53, a high-performance 64-bit mobile processor,” Lantzch told CNET.
He said ARM has been surprised by the pace of 64-bit adoption, with mobile parts coming from Qualcomm, MediaTek and Marvell. He said he hopes to see 64-bit phones by Christmas, although we suspect the first entry-level products will appear much sooner.
Lantzsch points out that even 32-bit code will run more efficiently on 64-bit ARMv8 parts. As software support improves, the performance gains will become more evident.
But where does this leave the Cortex A57? It is supposed to replace the Cortex A15, which had a few teething problems. Like the A15 it is a relatively big core. The A15 was simply too big and impractical on the 32nm node. On 28nm it’s better, but not perfect. It is still a huge core and its market success has been limited.
As a result, it’s highly unlikely that we will see any 28nm Cortex A57 parts. Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 810 is the first consumer oriented A57 SoC. It is a 20nm design and it is coming later this year, just in time for Christmas as ARM puts it. However, although the Snapdragon 810 will be ready by the end of the year, the first phones based on the new chip are expected to ship in early 2015.
While we will be able to buy 64-bit Android (and possibly Windows Phone) devices before Christmas, most if not all of them will be based on the A53. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Consumers won’t have to spend $500 to get a 64-bit ARM device, so the user base could start growing long before high-end parts start shipping, thus forcing developers and Google to speed up 64-bit development.
If rumors are to be believed, Google is doing just that and it is not shying away from small 64-bit cores. The search giant is reportedly developing a $100 Nexus phone for emerging markets. It is said to be based on MediaTek’s MT6732 clocked at 1.5GHz. Sounds interesting, provided the rumour turns out to be true.
Can AMD Lead?
He is one of the drivers behind AMD’s transformation, with the ultimate goal of turning the chipmaker into a new organization that is not so heavily dependent on the PC market. John confirmed that the company is on the road to achieve a huge milestone in its transition plans, generating approximately 50 percent of its revenue from the non-PC market by the end of 2015.
The time for the talk could not been better, as the market reacted positively to AMD’s Q1 earnings and at press time the stock was at $4.14, up $0.45 or 12.06 percent which is a huge jump for a tech stock. Keep in mind that many tech stocks have been bearish over the last four weeks, with several massive selloffs, especially in software and internet companies.
AMD fighting back in CPU space
We covered numerous topics from desktops, notebooks and tablets strategy all the way to the server, semi-custom APUs and of course the graphics market.
John said that leadership in the graphics sector is critical in AMD’s strategy, none more so than in the PC space where AMD wants to use their performance APU’s to compete with Intel’s Core i3 and Core i5 processors in the lucrative mainstream market. This is what AMD wants to address with Kaveri and to some extent with Kabini APUs.
AMD has high hopes for its upcoming server parts where they just launched their first ARM 64-bit product for the dense server space, where AMD expects to be a leader. On the other side of the spectrum the frugal AM1 platform launched a few weeks ago and it is getting very positive reviews. The first Kaveri parts have been on sale for a while, although we would like to see more desktop SKUs, not to mention mobile Kaveri APUs, including ULV variants.
Semi-custom APUs are blurring the line between AMD’s traditional product classes, but sales appear to be good, with more than 12 million Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles in the wild.
Phenomenal discrete GPU sales
Byrne is quietly confident when it comes to the GPU market, having just seen very strong sales in the performance and enthusiast high end segments of the market. The surge was driven by competitive products, great games and bundles, even with the cryptocurrency craze which was more or less a fluke for AMD.
The company remains committed to the GPU market, and expects to bring the successful R9 / R7 architecture further down into the mainstream price points in 2014, with similar traction. This means AMD will continue the fight against Nvidia in desktop and notebook GPU markets, while at the same time taking on Intel on desktop and notebook side with new APUs.
AMD thinks that the mix of great gaming performance, HSA, Mantle, Open CL, compute performance and some cool technologies like facial recognition can boost its position in the GPU market. This is just one part of the magic potion that is really starting to work for AMD, but it’s good to know that when it comes to graphics and gaming, AMD will stay committed to these markets in 2014 and beyond.
Enthusiasts need not worry. Although the company is reinventing itself and pursuing non-PC revenue streams, AMD will still be there to cater to their needs.
Can AMD Grow
AMD posted some rather encouraging Q1 numbers last night, but slow PC sales are still hurting the company, along with the rest of the sector.
When asked about the PC market slump, AMD CEO Rory Read confirmed that the PC market was down sequentially 7 percent. This was a bit better than the company predicted, as the original forecast was that the PC market would decline 7 to 10 percent.
Rory pointed out that AMD can grow in the PC market as there is a lot of ground that can be taken from the competition. The commercial market did better than expected and Rory claims that AMD’s diversification strategy is taking off. AMD is trying to win market share in desktop and commercial segments, hence AMD sees an opportunity to grown PC revenue in the coming quarters. Rory also expects that tablets will continue to cannibalize the PC market. This is not going to change soon.
Kaveri and Kabini will definitely help this effort as both are solid parts priced quite aggressively. Kabini is also available in AMD’s new AM1 platform and we believe it is an interesting concept with plenty of mass market potential. Desktop and Notebook ASPs are flat which is something that the financial community really appreciated. It would not be so unusual that average selling prices were down since the global PC market was down.
Kaveri did well in the desktop high-end market in Q1 2014 and there will be some interesting announcements in the mobile market in Q2 2014 and beyond.
Can DirectX-12 Give Mobile A Boot?
Microsoft announced DirectX 12 just a few days ago and for the first time Redmond’s API is relevant beyond the PC space. Some DirectX 12 tech will end up in phones and of course Windows tablets.
Qualcomm likes the idea, along with Nvidia. Qualcomm published an blog post on the potential impact of DirectX 12 on the mobile industry and the takeaway is very positive indeed.
DirectX 12 equals less overhead, more battery life
Qualcomm says it has worked closely with Microsoft to optimise “Windows mobile operating systems” and make the most of Adreno graphics. The chipmaker points out that current Snapdragon chipsets already support DirectX 9.3 and DirectX 11. However, the transition to DirectX 12 will make a huge difference.
“DirectX 12 will turbocharge gaming on Snapdragon enabled devices in many ways. Just a few years ago, our Snapdragon processors featured one CPU core, now most Snapdragon processors offer four. The new libraries and API’s in DirectX 12 make more efficient use of these multiple cores to deliver better performance,” Qualcomm said.
DirectX 12 will also allow the GPU to be used more efficiently, delivering superior performance per watt.
“That means games will look better and deliver longer gameplay longer on a single charge,” Qualcomm’s gaming and graphics director Jim Merrick added.
What about eye candy?
Any improvement in efficiency also tends to have a positive effect on overall quality. Developers can get more out of existing hardware, they will have more resources at their disposal, simple as that.
Qualcomm also points out that DirectX 12 is also the first version to launch on Microsoft’s mobile operating systems at the same time as its desktop and console counterparts.
The company believes this emphasizes the growing shift and consumer demand for mobile gaming. However, it will also make it easier to port desktop and console games to mobile platforms.
Of course, this does not mean that we’ll be able to play Titanfall on a Nokia Lumia, or that similarly demanding titles can be ported. However, it will speed up development and allow developers and publishers to recycle resources used in console and PC games. Since Windows Phone isn’t exactly the biggest mobile platform out there, this might be very helpful and it might attract more developers.
AMD, Intel & nVidia Go OpenGL
AMD, Intel and Nvidia teamed up to tout the advantages of the OpenGL multi-platform application programming interface (API) at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC).
Sharing a stage at the event in San Francisco, the three major chip designers explained how, with a little tuning, OpenGL can offer developers between seven and 15 times better performance as opposed to the more widely recognised increases of 1.3 times.
AMD manager of software development Graham Sellers, Intel graphics software engineer Tim Foley and Nvidia OpenGL engineer Cass Everitt and senior software engineer John McDonald presented their OpenGL techniques on real-world devices to demonstrate how these techniques are suitable for use across multiple platforms.
During the presentation, Intel’s Foley talked up three techniques that can help OpenGL increase performance and reduce driver overhead: persistent-mapped buffers for faster streaming of dynamic geometry, integrating Multidrawindirect (MDI) for faster submission of many draw calls, and packing 2D textures into arrays, so texture changes no longer break batches.
They also mentioned during their presentation that with proper implementations of these high-level OpenGL techniques, driver overhead could be reduced to almost zero. This is something that Nvidia’s software engineers have already claimed is impossible with Direct3D and only possible with OpenGL (see video below).
Nvidia’s VP of game content and technology, Ashu Rege, blogged his account of the GDC joint session on the Nvidia blog.
“The techniques presented apply to all major vendors and are suitable for use across multiple platforms,” Rege wrote.
“OpenGL can cut through the driver overhead that has been a frustrating reality for game developers since the beginning of the PC game industry. On desktop systems, driver overhead can decrease frame rate. On mobile devices, however, driver overhead is even more insidious, robbing both battery life and frame rate.”
The slides from the talk, entitled Approaching Zero Driver Overhead, are embedded below.
At the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Microsoft also unveiled the latest version of its graphics API, Directx 12, with Direct3D 12 for more efficient gaming.
Showing off the new Directx 12 API during a demo of Xbox One racing game Forza 5 running on a PC with an Nvidia Geforce Titan Black graphics card, Microsoft said Directx 12 gives applications the ability to directly manage resources to perform synchronisation. As a result, developers of advanced applications can control the GPU to develop games that run more efficiently.
Intel Outs New Xeon Chipset
Intel has released details about its new Xeon E7 v2 chipset. The Xeon processor E7 8800/4800/2800 v2 product family is designed to support up to 32-socket servers with configurations of up to 15 processing cores and up to 1.5 terabytes of memory per socket.
The chip is designed for the big data end of the Internet of Things movement, which the processor maker projected will grow to consist of at least 30 billion devices by 2020. Beyond two times better performance power, Intel is promising a few other upgrades with the next generation of this data-focused chipset, including triple the memory capacity, four times the I/O bandwidth and the potential to reduce total cost of ownership by up to 80 percent.
The 15-core variants with the largest thermal envelope (155W) run at 2.8GHz with 37.5MB of cache and 8 GT/s QuickPath connectivity. The lowest-power models in the list have 105W TDPs and run at 2.3GHz with 24MB of cache and 7.2 GT/s of QuickPath bandwidth. There was also talk of 40W, 1.4GHz models at ISSCC but they have not been announced yet.
Intel has signed on nearly two dozen hardware partners to support the platform, including Asus, Cisco, Dell, EMC, and Lenovo. On the software end, Microsoft, SAP, Teradata, Splunk, and Pivotal also already support the new Xeon family. IBM and Oracle are among the few that support Xeon E7 v2 on both sides of the spectrum.
AMD’s Kaveri Coming In Q4
AMD really needs to make up its mind and figure out how it interprets its own roadmaps. A few weeks ago the company said desktop Kaveri parts should hit the channel in mid-February 2014. The original plan called for a launch in late 2013, but AMD insists the chip was not delayed.
Now though, it told Computerbase.de that the first desktop chips will indeed appear in late 2013 rather than 2014, while mobile chips will be showcased at CES 2014 and they will launch in late Q1 or early Q2 2014.
As we reported earlier, the first FM2+ boards are already showing up on the market, but at this point it’s hard to say when Kaveri desktop APUs will actually be available. The most logical explanation is that they will be announced sometime in Q4, with retail availability coming some two months later.
Kaveri is a much bigger deal than Richland, which was basically Trinity done right. Kaveri is based on new Steamroller cores, it packs GCN graphics and it’s a 28nm part. It is expected to deliver a significant IPC boost over Piledriver-based chips, but we don’t have any exact numbers to report.
ARM & Oracel Optimize Java
ARM’s upcoming ARMv8 architecture will form the basis for several processors that will end up in servers. Now the firm has announced that it will work with Oracle to optimise Java SE for the architecture to squeeze out as much performance as possible.
ARM’s chip licensees are looking to the 64-bit ARMv8 architecture to make a splash in the low-power server market and go up against Intel’s Atom processors. However unlike Intel that can make use of software already optimised for x86, ARM and its vendors need to work with software firms to ensure that the new architecture will be supported at launch.
Oracle’s Java is a vital piece of software that is used by enterprise firms to run back-end systems, so poor performance from the Java virtual machine could be a serious problem for ARM and its licensees. To prevent that, ARM said it will work with Oracle to improve performance, boot-up performance and power efficiency, and optimize libraries.
Henrik Stahl, VP of Java Product Management at Oracle said, “The long-standing relationship between ARM and Oracle has enabled our mutual technologies to be deployed across a broad spectrum of products and applications.
“By working closely with ARM to enhance the JVM, adding support for 64-bit ARM technology and optimizing other aspects of the Java SE product for the ARM architecture, enterprise and embedded customers can reap the benefits of high-performance, energy-efficient platforms based on ARM technology.”
A number of ARM vendors including x86 stalwart AMD are expected to bring out 64-bit ARMv8 processors in 2014, though it is thought that Applied Micro will be the first to market with an ARMv8 processor chip later this year.