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Will ARM Get OpenCL Certification?
ARM has submitted its Mali-T604 GPU for OpenCL certification.
ARM’s Mali GPUs have so far shyed away from GPGPU support, however as smartphones and tablets are not expected to see an ever growing number of processor cores the cries for OpenCL support in its GPUs have been growing louder. Now ARM has submitted its Mali-T604 GPU to the Khronos consortium for full profile OpenCL certification.
The Khronos consortium oversees the development of OpenCL and the high-level language is supported by a number of firms including AMD, Nvidia and Intel on their latest GPUs. However until now there hasn’t been an OpenCL certified GPU that is used in smartphones, though firms such as Zii Labs also boast OpenCL support for their chips.
ARM said, “Building on a scalable multicore, multi-pipeline architecture design, the Mali-T600 Series GPU includes a number of advanced features. In particular, native scalar and vector operations for OpenCL’s integer and floating point data types (including 64-bit); support for static and dynamic compilation; hardware accelerated image and sampler data types; fast atomic operations and compliance to IEEE754-2008 precision requirements.
ARM Profits On The Rise
ARM has reported good second quarter financial results, with profit rising by 23 per cent to $102.97 million.
ARM has been riding high in the public consciousness thanks to firms such as Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Nvidia pushing its chip architecture into smartphones and tablets. The firm announced it managed to take in $209.78 millio in revenue during the second quarter, a 15 per cent increase from the same period last year, while net income rose even faster by 23 per cent to $102.97 million.
ARM said two billion chips using the firm’s various design models were shipped during the quarter, which represented a nine per cent increase from last year. The firm revealed that its core money making operation, processor royalties, rose by 14 per cent.
Warren East, CEO of ARM said, “ARM’s royalty revenues continued to outperform the overall semiconductor industry as our customers gained market share within existing markets and launched products which are taking ARM technology into new markets.
“This quarter we have seen multiple market leaders announce exciting new products including computers and servers from Dell and Microsoft, and embedded applications from Freescale and Toshiba. In addition, ARM and TSMC announced a partnership to optimise next generation ARM processors and physical IP and TSMC’s FinFET process technology.”
Will Chipmakers Make Cuts This Year?
Gartner is warning that worldwide wafer fab equipment spending is on pace to total $33 billion in 2012 which is a decline of 8.9 percent from 2011.
Gartner analysts warned that this is a sign of an industry in downturn and said the market will return to growth in 2013 with WFE spending projected to surpass $35.4 billion, a 7.4 percent increase from 2012. Bob Johnson, research vice president at Gartner said 2012 spending was strong at the beginning of the year, as foundries and other logic manufacturers ramped up sub-30-nm production.
Intel Buys Patents
Intel on Monday spent US$375 million to purchase nearly 1,700 wireless networking patents from subsidiaries of digital communications company Interdigital.
Intel will get patents that cover a range of 3G, LTE and Wi-Fi technologies from Interdigital. The patents should boost Intel’s product mobile product portfolio as the company establishes a presence in the smartphone and tablet markets, which is currently ruled by ARM.
Intel has said it will integrate 3G and 4G LTE capabilities along with its Atom microprocessor in devices like smartphones and tablets. Intel made its first entry into the smartphone market earlier this year with its Atom chip code-named Medfield, which is being used in handsets from Lenovo, Orange and Lava International.
Intel later this year will release a dual-core Atom Z2580 processor with 3G, 4G and LTE capabilities. Intel’s upcoming Atom chip for tablets, code-named Clover Trail, will also come with mobile broadband options.
Intel started building its wireless business following the acquisition of Infineon Wireless for $1.4 billion, which was completed last year.
Wireless is a fast-changing market, and the company is making this investment to support the business, according to Chuck Mulloy, an Intel spokesman.
“This was an opportunity to add some value to our patent portfolio. That’s over and above what we have,” Mulloy said.
AMD, ARM And Others Form HSA Chip Foundation
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AMD, ARM, Imagination Technologies, Mediatek and Texas Instruments have signed up to create the Heterogeneous System Architecture Foundation (HSAF).
AMD has been pushing its vision for heterogeneous computing, where CPUs and GPUs can share system resources such as memory allowing developers to treat any processing core as a black box. Now the firm has managed to rope in ARM, Imagination Technologies, Mediatek and Texas Instruments to create the non-profit HSAF.
According to AMD, HSAF will try to define a hardware specification for developers to standardise upon, which should make development quicker and easier.
Phil Rogers, HSAF president and AMD corporate fellow said, “HSA [heterogeneous system architecture] moves the industry beyond the constraints of the legacy system architecture of the past 25-plus years that is now stifling software innovations. By aiming HSA squarely at the needs of the software developer, we have designed a common hardware platform for high performance, energy efficient solutions. HSA is unlocking a new realm of possibilities across PCs, smartphones, tablets and ultrathin notebooks, as well as the innovative supercomputers and cloud services that define the modern computing experience.”
AMD has scored something of a coup by getting big names such as ARM, Imagination and Texas Instruments to back its vision of a heterogeneous system architecture. Although the company has been struggling in outright performance terms against Intel, the idea of a combining CPU and GPU resources and making them appear as one to the application is something that will help it leverage its GPU compute capability against Intel.
Will Window 8 Tablets Launch In November?
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The first Windows 8 tablets should hit retail sometime in November and we could see a bunch of devices in different form factors.
According to CNET’s Brooke Crothers, the first wave of Windows tablets will include more than a dozen devices, but more than half of them will be hybrid designs. So, it seems Microsoft and vendors are betting on traditional keyboards to set Windows tablets apart from the competition.
The new tablets will be based on Intel’s dual-core Clover Trail Atoms, but bear in mind that Microsoft will also release Windows for ARM chips and AMD could also enter the fray with some low-voltage APUs.
Intel Goes ALL-IN On Windows 8 Tablets
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It appears that is working on a new type of NAND storage, offering higher data density and lower costs. The company believes the new triple-level cell ships are ideally suited for tablets and ultrabooks.
Samsung claims it is the first chipmaker to embrace triple-level cell (TLC) technology, but other companies are expected to follow suit. Unlike single-level cell (SLC) or multilevel cell (MLC), the new tech can store three bits per cell, greatly increasing density. The obvious offshoot is lower production cost, as TLC basically allows for more bits per wafer.
However, TLC also has some drawbacks. Due to its design, it is more prone to errors, less reliable and it is also slower than MLC. However, it still ends up significantly faster than hard drives and reliability issues can be worked out with a bit more digital signal processing.
Is Samsung Pursuing The Server Market?
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It is certain that Korean electronics giant Samsung will soon be entering the server chip market.
Reports are coming in that the company has been picking up key server personnel from Intel and AMD. Samsung has been focused on developing ARM chips and stayed clear of the x86 architecture used by Intel and AMD.
But the companies latest hires seem to indicate that might change.
Samsung’s latest recruits include veterans of the chip business like Jim Mergard, Frank Helms, who is a Fusion APU architect, Brad Burgess who designed the Bobcat APU and Patrick Patla (VP of AMD’s server business). Patla was behind the success of the Opteron chip set and has done well using the x86-server system.
Intel To Unleash Shark Bay In 2013
Intel used a saucy word to describe the 2013 Haswell based notebook platform. It tells us that Shark Bay should reinvigorate the notebook experience. Revive would seem to be the more appropriate word in this case.
Shark Bay promises more sensors, faster resume times, Intel smart connect as well as connected stand by. All this will be present on at least some Shark Bay powered notebooks.
Intel also wants to bring more improved connected capabilities to 2013 notebooks. It promises NFC support, Thunderbolt paired up with now standard Intel Wireless display.
With more fuzz about sensors, NFC, all-day battery and thin and light approach Intel’s notebook of the future is basically a tablet with a keyboard that probably costs a bit more money and offers traditional PC functionality.
Will Windows 8 Beat Android?
February 8, 2012 by admin
Filed under Uncategorized
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ARM’s CEO Warren East has been having a look at his Tarot cards and has come to the conclusion that Windows 8 will probably put the fear of God into Android in the tablet market.
East said that Microsoft may have some potential advantages over Android particularly now it is going to run on chips lovingly designed on ARM. East told CNET that Microsoft’s brand recognition among consumers was a lot better than Androids and this could mean that they would go for that brand. He said consumers are familiar with Microsoft and very familiar with Windows and they’re less familiar with an Android environment. East added that it will be interesting to see how Microsoft exploits that advantage, but I think that’s a fundamental difference. He believes Android tablet sales will eventually take off as there were similarities between what happened with smartphones.
When Android phones were introduced, there was a lot of hype and nothing happened then a few years later–two years later–half a million units a day, 700,000 units a day and Android phones now are successful. East thought that everyone should give Android tablets a little bit more time. He did not think that Intel would be able to dent the smartphone or tablet market.