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Given that they address it in their statement, I'm interested to see how their FPGA offerings develop in the next few years. FPGAs have a brutal learning curve

by Everlag 10y ago

Given that they address it in their statement, I'm interested to see how their FPGA offerings develop in the next few years. FPGAs have a brutal learning curve but sit in a yet unscaled power efficiency niche. Could we see FPGA VPS in the future if Intel's backing them? Then again, that mention is probably just to respond to concerns regarding layoffs ~immediately after the Altera purchase.

petra 10y ago
Xilinx and IBM are doing an FPGA cloud: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/xilinx-and-ibm-put-big-data-fpga-design-in-the-cloud-2016-04/ http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/xilinx-and-ibm-put-big...
vvanders 10y ago
Usually I don't associate FPGAs and power efficiency. I know about lattice's offerings or is there something I'm missing?
- wtallis 10y ago
  It sounds like you're thinking of power consumption in some absolute sense (ie. FPGAs suitable for mobile/battery-powered use) rather than power efficiency. For the right workload, FPGAs can be much more efficient than general-purpose CPUs. But FPGAs aren't the only thing occupying the middle ground between general-purpose CPUs and ASICs; DSPs and GPUs also compete in that space.
- akiselev 10y ago
  Relative to custom silicon, yes, FPGAs are way more power hungry. However, there are many things you can do much more power efficiently in an FPGA than on CPU or GPGPU like video decoding/encoding, crypto, digital signal processing, and many other real time critical systems. FPGA sits in a price/performance niche that has high unit costs and power requirements but little upfront investment compared to custom silicon and a little more than general computing but with the benefit of throughput/latency
  - kps 10y ago
    Where do FPGAs sit for running neural networks? Or, does it make sense to manufacture Field Programmable Node Arrays rather than Field Porgrammable Gate Arrays?
    - akiselev 10y ago
      I think that GPUs are already basically field programmable node arrays. Maybe for certain instances FPGAs would be better but the neural network would have to be designed at the logic gate level so it'd be significantly more costly in engineering time than a algorithm running on the GPU or CPU. FPGAs are for relatively simple logic running at incredibly high throughput with very low latencies. It's extremely common to move more complicated logic to a "soft" CPU on the FPGA that runs C code compiled to ARM/SPARC/POWER etc. and controls the low level hardware.
      - striking 10y ago
        GPUs are getting closer to being math- and draw-optimized FPGAs. I don't think they'll be separate products too far in the future.
        CamperBob2 10y ago
        At the desktop/server level, I agree, which is why I don't get the whole Intel/Altera synergy thing. But in more specific embedded cases -- meaning the vast majority of FPGA applications -- they are nothing alike. If I need to run a multichannel digital downconverter on a power budget of 1 watt, no GPU available in the foreseeable future is going to handle that role as well as an FPGA will. Perhaps someday a hypothetical I/O-optimized GPU will be able to do the jobs that are currently done on FPGAs and ASICs, but definitely not now.
        PhantomGremlin 10y ago
        I don't get the whole Intel/Altera synergy thing Let's recall a previous acquisition, one that I totally didn't understand. An analyst had a really good quip about it: JPMorgan analyst Christopher Danely upgraded Intel to overweight following the company's earnings, although he still struggles to reconcile Intel's recent acquisition spree. "Intel might as well have bought Whole Foods," he said of the McAfee deal.[1] Compared to McAfee, acquiring Altera was brilliant. As a public company Intel is always facing scrutiny from Wall Street. They need to constantly increase both revenue and earnings. What better way than via a strategic acquisition? Instant growth. And Altera was a logical target. Altera sells high-margin silicon. Intel sells high-margin silicon. Intel was even fabbing some of Altera's parts, so they were quite familiar with the company. And maybe some smart people could eventually think of some synergy. E.g. once upon a time Intel made the IXP1200, a "network processor". What if, instead of designing custom silicon for something like that, perhaps a CPU + FPGA on a single die would be sufficient? Makes much more sense than Intel acquiring McAfee. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dealtalk-intel-idUSTRE73K7ZZ20110421 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dealtalk-intel-idUSTRE73K7...

by Everlag 10y ago

petra 10y ago

Xilinx and IBM are doing an FPGA cloud: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/xilinx-and-ibm-put-big-data-fpga-design-in-the-cloud-2016-04/ http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/xilinx-and-ibm-put-big...

vvanders 10y ago

Usually I don't associate FPGAs and power efficiency. I know about lattice's offerings or is there something I'm missing?

wtallis 10y ago
It sounds like you're thinking of power consumption in some absolute sense (ie. FPGAs suitable for mobile/battery-powered use) rather than power efficiency. For the right workload, FPGAs can be much more efficient than general-purpose CPUs. But FPGAs aren't the only thing occupying the middle ground between general-purpose CPUs and ASICs; DSPs and GPUs also compete in that space.
akiselev 10y ago
Relative to custom silicon, yes, FPGAs are way more power hungry. However, there are many things you can do much more power efficiently in an FPGA than on CPU or GPGPU like video decoding/encoding, crypto, digital signal processing, and many other real time critical systems. FPGA sits in a price/performance niche that has high unit costs and power requirements but little upfront investment compared to custom silicon and a little more than general computing but with the benefit of throughput/latency
- kps 10y ago
  Where do FPGAs sit for running neural networks? Or, does it make sense to manufacture Field Programmable Node Arrays rather than Field Porgrammable Gate Arrays?
  - akiselev 10y ago
    I think that GPUs are already basically field programmable node arrays. Maybe for certain instances FPGAs would be better but the neural network would have to be designed at the logic gate level so it'd be significantly more costly in engineering time than a algorithm running on the GPU or CPU. FPGAs are for relatively simple logic running at incredibly high throughput with very low latencies. It's extremely common to move more complicated logic to a "soft" CPU on the FPGA that runs C code compiled to ARM/SPARC/POWER etc. and controls the low level hardware.
    - striking 10y ago
      GPUs are getting closer to being math- and draw-optimized FPGAs. I don't think they'll be separate products too far in the future.
      - CamperBob2 10y ago
        At the desktop/server level, I agree, which is why I don't get the whole Intel/Altera synergy thing. But in more specific embedded cases -- meaning the vast majority of FPGA applications -- they are nothing alike. If I need to run a multichannel digital downconverter on a power budget of 1 watt, no GPU available in the foreseeable future is going to handle that role as well as an FPGA will. Perhaps someday a hypothetical I/O-optimized GPU will be able to do the jobs that are currently done on FPGAs and ASICs, but definitely not now.
        PhantomGremlin 10y ago
        I don't get the whole Intel/Altera synergy thing Let's recall a previous acquisition, one that I totally didn't understand. An analyst had a really good quip about it: JPMorgan analyst Christopher Danely upgraded Intel to overweight following the company's earnings, although he still struggles to reconcile Intel's recent acquisition spree. "Intel might as well have bought Whole Foods," he said of the McAfee deal.[1] Compared to McAfee, acquiring Altera was brilliant. As a public company Intel is always facing scrutiny from Wall Street. They need to constantly increase both revenue and earnings. What better way than via a strategic acquisition? Instant growth. And Altera was a logical target. Altera sells high-margin silicon. Intel sells high-margin silicon. Intel was even fabbing some of Altera's parts, so they were quite familiar with the company. And maybe some smart people could eventually think of some synergy. E.g. once upon a time Intel made the IXP1200, a "network processor". What if, instead of designing custom silicon for something like that, perhaps a CPU + FPGA on a single die would be sufficient? Makes much more sense than Intel acquiring McAfee. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dealtalk-intel-idUSTRE73K7ZZ20110421 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dealtalk-intel-idUSTRE73K7...