4 ms·

Custom 18 core arm chips (too much for A7-9, too little for M0-4, really weird number of cores), and what looks like 8-12 layer pcbs. This cant be cheap :o I w

by rasz_pl 11y ago

Custom 18 core arm chips (too much for A7-9, too little for M0-4, really weird number of cores), and what looks like 8-12 layer pcbs. This cant be cheap :o I wonder how it looks at this level of integration (850 cores per board) versus something like Xeon + PHI/GPU. You certainly do gain asynchronous mode of operation, and that might be the winning factor/secret sauce.

ris 11y ago
"Custom 18 core arm chips (too much for A7-9, too little for M0-4, really weird number of cores)" Could just look at the website instead of speculating http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk/projects/SpiNNaker/SpiNNchip/ http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk/projects/SpiNNaker/SpiNNchip/
- rasz_pl 11y ago
  ARM9E, wow that is ancient, 15 year old nintendo DS ancient. Not even R4 (if they really really need realtime oriented core).
  - m_mueller 11y ago
    AFAIK the Xeon Phi is based on something in between Pentium I and II cores. So the idea is about the same. I'd put my money on ARM when it comes to efficient chip architecture, since efficiency was their goal from the start (x86 was always about backwards compatibility first).
    - DiabloD3 11y ago
      No, the Phi is a P6 core, but so is all the modern Core family CPUs. All Phis are along the lines of modern cores stripped down and simplified. This is also how the modern Avoton and newer Atoms work, but the Phi is stripped down even farther.
      - m_mueller 11y ago
        That's not what I get from Intel's documentation. Intel seems to call it a Pentium I with a P6 programming interface. But maybe you have other sources, if so please share. > So why not use an older, smaller but still very capable core? And that is what they did. The designers went back generations, literally back to one of the first modern cores, the Intel® Pentium® processor. [1] > The foundation for the Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessor core PMU is the PMU from the original Intel® Pentium® processor (aka P54C). Most of the forty - two performance events that were available in the original Intel® Pentium® processor are also available on the Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessor The core PMU has been upgraded to an Intel® Pentium® Pro processor - like (“P6 - style”) programming interface. [1] https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2013/03/22/the-intel-xeon-phi-coprocessor-what-is-it-and-why-should-i-care-pt-1-fitting-it-all https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2013/03/22/the-intel-... [2] https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/forum/278102/intelr-xeon-phitm-pmu-rev1.01.pdf https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/forum/278102/... (section 1.2)
        DiabloD3 11y ago
        All a PMU is, is a performance monitoring unit. It keeps track of CPU utilization and performance counters. This is an extremely small part of the CPU, and yes, I can imagine they jettisoned a lot of stuff you find on modern cores because it takes up too much room.
        m_mueller 11y ago
        Good point, that source wasn't really what I thought it is. There's still enough sources to support my argument though. > The cores at the heart of Intel’s first Xeon Phi are based on the P54C revision of the original Pentium and appear largely unchanged from the design Intel planned to use for Larrabee. [3] > Many changes were made to the original 32-bit P54c architecture to make it into an Intel Xeon Phi 64-bit processor. [4] - so, still, they seemed to have started with Pentium I and adding stuff to it rather than stripping out a modern core. Which was always the story they sold about Larrabee, which AFAIK was the direct predecessor project that got salvaged with Intel MIC. [3] http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/133541-intels-64-core-champion-in-depth-on-xeon-phi http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/133541-intels-64-core-cha... [4] https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-xeon-phi-core-micro-architecture https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-xeon-phi-cor...
  - aidenn0 11y ago
    Taped out in in 2010 before the r4 was announced.
etrautmann 11y ago
The human brain project did receive $1B from the EU...: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Brain_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Brain_Project

by rasz_pl 11y ago

ris 11y ago

"Custom 18 core arm chips (too much for A7-9, too little for M0-4, really weird number of cores)" Could just look at the website instead of speculating http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk/projects/SpiNNaker/SpiNNchip/ http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk/projects/SpiNNaker/SpiNNchip/

rasz_pl 11y ago
ARM9E, wow that is ancient, 15 year old nintendo DS ancient. Not even R4 (if they really really need realtime oriented core).
- m_mueller 11y ago
  AFAIK the Xeon Phi is based on something in between Pentium I and II cores. So the idea is about the same. I'd put my money on ARM when it comes to efficient chip architecture, since efficiency was their goal from the start (x86 was always about backwards compatibility first).
  - DiabloD3 11y ago
    No, the Phi is a P6 core, but so is all the modern Core family CPUs. All Phis are along the lines of modern cores stripped down and simplified. This is also how the modern Avoton and newer Atoms work, but the Phi is stripped down even farther.
    - m_mueller 11y ago
      That's not what I get from Intel's documentation. Intel seems to call it a Pentium I with a P6 programming interface. But maybe you have other sources, if so please share. > So why not use an older, smaller but still very capable core? And that is what they did. The designers went back generations, literally back to one of the first modern cores, the Intel® Pentium® processor. [1] > The foundation for the Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessor core PMU is the PMU from the original Intel® Pentium® processor (aka P54C). Most of the forty - two performance events that were available in the original Intel® Pentium® processor are also available on the Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessor The core PMU has been upgraded to an Intel® Pentium® Pro processor - like (“P6 - style”) programming interface. [1] https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2013/03/22/the-intel-xeon-phi-coprocessor-what-is-it-and-why-should-i-care-pt-1-fitting-it-all https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2013/03/22/the-intel-... [2] https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/forum/278102/intelr-xeon-phitm-pmu-rev1.01.pdf https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/forum/278102/... (section 1.2)
      - DiabloD3 11y ago
        All a PMU is, is a performance monitoring unit. It keeps track of CPU utilization and performance counters. This is an extremely small part of the CPU, and yes, I can imagine they jettisoned a lot of stuff you find on modern cores because it takes up too much room.
        m_mueller 11y ago
        Good point, that source wasn't really what I thought it is. There's still enough sources to support my argument though. > The cores at the heart of Intel’s first Xeon Phi are based on the P54C revision of the original Pentium and appear largely unchanged from the design Intel planned to use for Larrabee. [3] > Many changes were made to the original 32-bit P54c architecture to make it into an Intel Xeon Phi 64-bit processor. [4] - so, still, they seemed to have started with Pentium I and adding stuff to it rather than stripping out a modern core. Which was always the story they sold about Larrabee, which AFAIK was the direct predecessor project that got salvaged with Intel MIC. [3] http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/133541-intels-64-core-champion-in-depth-on-xeon-phi http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/133541-intels-64-core-cha... [4] https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-xeon-phi-core-micro-architecture https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-xeon-phi-cor...
- aidenn0 11y ago
  Taped out in in 2010 before the r4 was announced.

etrautmann 11y ago

The human brain project did receive $1B from the EU...: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Brain_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Brain_Project