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Will Tegra 4 Support USB 3.0?
Wayne, also known as Tegra 4 is coming out at CES 2013, or in some 10 days from now. Nvidia has an event planned days ahead of CES 2013 and the company will likely show some tablets and hybrids based on the new Tegra SoC. Let’s call Wayne Tegra 4 before it gets official.
Nvidia had Wayne ready to launch in Q4 2012 but it had to wait for partners to release the designs based on it, and most of them wanted to do it at CES 2013. European phones based on Wayne are going to show up in February, at the Mobile World Congress.
This is the first quad-core A15 design that will bring a significant performance increase over Tegra 3 and we are hearing that the four-plus-one core will deliver a bigger performance boost than Tegra 3 did over Tegra 2. Also, the fact that the new chip is 28nm and supports DDR3L also promises more efficiency.
USB 3.0 support is something that is getting us excited as usually it is quite slow to transfer anything onto tablets, phones and hybrids. USB 3.0 on tablets will significantly increase the data transfer speed and Tegra 4 will be among the first chips to feature USB 3.0 support, and many consumers will appreciate faster data transfer rates.
The other thing that got our attention is dual display support and you will be able to have two independent screens. On Tegra 3 based devices, you can only mirror the output, not display two independent screens. It could be a very interesting feature for dockable devices.
nVidia’s Tegra 4 Specs Spotted
Here is an interesting leak, just what the doctor ordered to spice up a rather slow news cycle. Chiphell has posted a slide containing a few Tegra 4 specs, but we still don’t know the clocks or a few other interesting details. Of course, the leak should be taken with a grain of salt, but the specs are more or less in line with what we were expecting all along.
Tegra 4, codenamed Wayne, is a 28nm part with revamped graphics and new ARM cores. Although the slide does not directly point to the type of ARM cores used in the design, the new chip is based on ARM’s latest A15 core. Like the Tegra 3, the new chip will also feature an additional companion core to improve energy efficiency. No surprises here really.
In terms of GPU performance, Nvidia promises to deliver a six-fold improvement over the Tegra 3 and a 20x improvement over Tegra 2 chips. Oddly enough, in spite of Nvidia’s graphics prowess, Tegra chips never featured world-beating graphics. This time around they could, thanks to the new 72-core GPU. The GPU will be able to cope with 2560×1600 screens at 120Hz, but it could also take on 4K resolutions, although details are still sketchy. At this point 4K support could only be relevant for next-generation smart TVs, with a huge price tag.
As far as other features go, Tegra 4 brings support for USB 3.0 and DDR3L dual-channel memory. The leak does not mention LTE support.
Tegra 4 will have to take on the likes of Samsung’s upcoming Exynos 5440, which should also debut in early 2013. Nvidia was first to market with a quad-core A9 chip, but this time around it will have to face off against the new Exynos and A15 quad-cores from other vendors.
Nvidia is expected to showcase the new chip at CES and we’ll be there to check it out.
nVidia Soars
Nvidia has published its third quarter earnings and the results are impressive to say the least. With record revenue of $1.2 billion, Nvidia’s net income in Q3 was $209.1 million (GAAP).
Quarterly revenue is up 12.9 percent year-over-year and represents a 15.3 percent sequential bump, beating analyst expectations. However, Nvidia expects its revenue to dip to between $1.02 and $1.17 billion in the fourth quarter.
The company blames the projected slump on a declining PC market. It seems Nvidia does not expect Windows 8 will have a very positive impact on the PC market.
AMD’s Roadmap Leaked
According to the latest AMD desktop roadmap, published by DonanimHaber, the Steamroller architecture could be delayed, which means Piledriver cores will power AMD’s third-generation APUs.
So what does this mean for consumers? Well, Richland APUs might not be quite as good as expected. AMD could optimize the x86 cores and go for more powerful graphics, but it’s hard to get excited about the next generation.
Vishera parts will also stick to Piledriver cores, backed by discreet Radeon 7xxx and 8xxx series graphics. However, we will see a new architecture in the low end. Kabini is apparently on track to launch next year, with Jaguar cores, refreshed graphics and an all new system-on-chip version, with an integrated on-chip Fusion controller hub (FCH).
What’s more, AMD will also offer quad-core Kabini parts, and who could say no to a dirt cheap E-series APU with four cores, good graphics and a ridiculous TDP?
AMD Makes More Cuts
There have been some rumors that AMD plans to drop prices on its older generation APUs as well as some AM3 Athlon II CPUs and as of yesterday, the new price list confirmed those cuts. Unfortunately the price cuts are not that impressive on the FM1 side but some AM3 Athlon II CPUs have seen a price reduction of over 30 percent.
The full list includes a total of six A-Series APUs and twelve AM3 Athlon II CPUs. The most impressive price cut in the A-Series was on the A4-3300 APU for 21.7 percent, or from US $46 down to US $36. The flagship A8-3870K got cut down by 9.9 percent while A6-3670K was cut down by far less impressive 3.7 percent.
The most impressive price cuts on the AM3 Athlon II side is on the Athlon II X4 640 and the Athlon II X2 265. The Athlon II X4 640 got cut down from US $98 to US $67, or 31.6 percent, while Athlon II X2 265 got cut down from US $69 to US $48, or 30.4 percent.
Two Athlon II CPUs, the X3 445 and the X4 638, were removed from the price list as they were most likely discontinued.
You can check out the full list and price cuts over at CPU-World.com.
Is The x86 Falling
According to Mercury Research, worldwide shipments of x86 parts saw a sharp decline in Q3. Researchers claim the drop was the biggest seen in more than a decade, 9 percent year-over-year.
Despite the drop, Intel still has something to brag about. Intel’s share hit 83.3 percent, up from 80.6 percent sequentially. AMD’s share dropped to 16.1, down from 18.8 percent, while VIA garnered a 0.6 percent share.
Mercury Research analyst Dean McCarron told PC World that both AMD and Intel experienced declines, but AMD took more of the hit than Intel.
“AMD was simply hit by what OEMs saw in the markets… and hitting the brakes,” he said.
What’s more, the third quarter is supposed to be traditionally strong for x86 chipmakers, thanks to the back-to-school shopping frenzy. However, x86 CPU shipments dropped 4 percent in Q2, followed by 9 percent in Q3. Things aren’t looking good for Q4, either.
“The key is how the macroeconomic situation is, which is not looking good for the next couple of quarters,” McCarron said. “Hopefully things will improve next year.”
ARM Goes High-End
Nvidia is itself an ARM chip licensee that has seen significant design wins with its Tegra 3 system-on-chip (SoC) processor, however the firm doesn’t see ARM based servers being able to do heavy lifting in server tasks for two years. Sumit Gupta, GM of Nvidia’s Tesla Accelerated Computing business unit said that even with GPGPUs, ARM based servers are not yet able to provide the computing power needed to drive high performance servers.
Gupta said, “Performance of these ARM cores is still not where it needs to be for servers. It is getting there; the new ARM64 [processor] is going to get it part of the way.” However he did say that eventually ARM SoCs could hit X86-like performance levels. “One day I think ARM will at least get to similar performance levels as X86 performance. The belief is that over the next one or two years these ARM SoCs will be good enough for cloud applications and web serving. I think it will take some more time to be good enough for accelerated computing.”
As for Nvidia using its Tegra chips to push work to the firm’s GPGPUs, a scenario that would make the firm’s accountants very happy, Gupta said he was surprised at the level of interest from developers and questioned the need for powerful CPUs. “We did a small development kit called Karma that has a Tegra 3 and a Nvidia GPU, [and] I was shocked by the number of those kits that have been sold. The interest in this ARM plus GPU is far larger than even I expected. If the GPU can do dynamic parallelism, it becomes more independent than how powerful CPUs do you need? I believe the first thing that will happen is that people will start using lower performing [Intel] Xeons […] then at some point when these Atom based processors become available they might use that, and when ARM64 is available they’ll use that.”
AMD Goes Piledriver
AMD has released its Piledriver desktop
processors codenamed Vishera.
AMD showed off Vishera at IDF last month, an overclocked chip running at 5GHz. Now the company has taken the wraps off its eight-core Vishera chip, a processor that it hopes will finally bury memories of its disappointing Bulldozer Zambezi chip.
AMD’s Vishera processors will continue to use Socket AM3+, meaning it is a drop-in upgrade for those customers lumbered with Zambezi processors.
The firm announcing four models all branded with the FX moniker. The low-end Vishera chip is the quad-core FX-4300 clocked at 3.8GHz boosted up to 4.0GHz, with 4MB of Level 3 cache.
The firm has kept feature parity throughout its Vishera FX range aside from core count and total Level 3 cache. Therefore AMD’s six-core FX-6300 still sports the same 1MB of Level 2 cache per core but has a total Level 3 cache of 8MB and is clocked at 3.5GHz that can be boosted up to 4.1GHz.
AMD’s top two Vishera parts, the FX-8320 and FX-8350 sport eight cores and have 8MB of Level 3 cache. The difference between the two chips is their clock frequencies, with the FX-8320 running at 3.5GHz and boosted to 4.0GHz while the FX-8350 is clocked at 4.0GHz and is boosted to 4.2GHz.
The firm’s decision to clock its FX-8320 and FX-8350 so closely is largely academic, as all Vishera chips feature an unlocked multiplier. AMD even plays up the overclockability of Vishera and touts 5GHz as being reachable with water cooling. Insiders have even said it can reach 5GHz with strong air cooling.
As for AMD’s Piledriver architecture, the firm claims it offers improved branch prediction and improvements to Level 2 cache efficiency and scheduling. Overall the company is sticking to its longstanding line that Vishera is a 15 percent performance increase over Bulldozer, and while that might well be true, Bulldozer was so far behind its competition in single-threaded performance that a 15 percent gain is needed simply to achieve parity, let alone a lead.
ARM Seeing Growth
ARM and Vivante have achieved significant market share gains in the system-on-chip (SoC) GPU market while Imagination and Qualcomm have seen their market shares fall.
ARM has been aggressively pushing its Mali GPU design for the last two years, while Vivante has ridden the surge in Chinese tablet sales, and these factors have resulted in both firms increasing market shares. Analyst outfit Jon Peddie Research claimed that ARM and Vivante scored first half 2012 SoC GPU market shares of 12.9 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively, while the SoC GPU market share leaders Imagination and Qualcomm both suffered declines.
ARM more than doubled its market share from the same period a year ago while Vivante went even better by almost quadrupling its market share. Not only were both firms claiming large pieces of the pie, Jon Peddie Research claimed the SoC GPU market had increased by 91.3 percent, suggesting that Qualcomm and Imagination are having a harder time getting new business. Jon Peddie told The INQUIRER that new vendors are entering the market, typically with lower prices to earn customers.
Nvidia’s SoC GPU operations accounted for 2.5 percent of the total smartphone and tablet market, which given that the firm doesn’t license out its GPU designs is pretty impressive. Nvidia could see its market share increase if Microsoft’s Surface tablet sells well.
Will ST Micro Break-up?
ST Microelectronics reportedly is considering breaking itself up in order to offload its system-on-chip (SoC) business.
ST Microelectronics has been losing sales as its traditional customers such as Nokia and Research in Motion struggle in the smartphone market, which has tended to favour chip vendors such as Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Nvidia in recent years. Now Bloomberg is reporting that ST Microelectronics is considering breaking up to allow it to offload its SoC business and concentrate on the profitable analog business.
According to Bloomberg’s report the firm is mulling the division of the company into two distinct parts, the analog business and the digital business that designs chips for use in set-top boxes, televisions and smartphone handsets. ST Microelectronics’ analog business includes chips that end up in cars and white goods, areas where there is expected to be significant growth in the coming years.
ST Microelectronics moved quickly to try to put a lid on the report by denying “the existence of initiatives which can compromise the unity of the company”. Nevertheless, the firm’s stock price rose sharply on the rumour, suggesting that the market would welcome such a move and perhaps giving the firm’s board the incentive it needs to put through such a plan.