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That's direct competition for Cavium (american multicore MIPS -max 48 cores/chip on Octeon III SoCs- and ARM -max 48 cores/chip on ThunderX SoCs- chip maker).

by faragon 10y ago

That's direct competition for Cavium (american multicore MIPS -max 48 cores/chip on Octeon III SoCs- and ARM -max 48 cores/chip on ThunderX SoCs- chip maker). If they manage to sell 64-core ARM chips for 50$, even using just 28nm (maximum available on mainland China foundries -AFAIK-), it could hurt Cavium badly and start worrying Intel.

dogma1138 10y ago
They aren't going to sell these chips anywhere close to 50$, high end mobile phone SoC's cost 60-100$ these days, even the Chinese SoC's are not that cheap MediaTek's Helio X25/X20 are "cheap" because they aren't Snapdragon 823 Exynos 8893 100$ price parts, but they are around 30-50$ also (and could be even more, since a bargain bin MT6582 MediaTek ARMv7 SoC costs 8-10$). This isn't going to be fabbed in China, almost none of the chinese SoC's are fabbed locally the foundries are not built for that the process is too old and overall they are not intended to produce such complex silicon, there is much more to a process than just the lithography and even that is not straightforward because you actually need to do tricks to get to sub 28nm today as you often end up using higher wavelength light since extreme UV and other similar technologies aren't there yet. The 64-core SoC's are going to be multi-100$ parts, probably closer to the 1000$ mark regardless if they are chinese or not, Cavium SoC's are about as expensive or even more expensive than some of the Intel parts they are competing against. If China introduces a 64 core ARMv8 SoC at 50$ Intel won't be worried, it would panic to the point of them using the backdoor everyone on HN think they have via AMT rigging the election so Trump can win and then convincing him to nuke China might actually happen. That said a 50$ 64 core ARMv8 SoC is pretty much impossible to make even in China, by China, for China.
- faragon 10y ago
  "That said a 50$ 64 core ARMv8 SoC is pretty much impossible to make even in China, by China, for China." Allwinner A20 (4 core ARMv8 Cortex A53, 512KB L2 cache, 128KB L1 cache, 2 core Mali 400, video interface, etc.) costs 6$ in volume. So I guess just in plain die area, the 64 core Mars ARMv8 (32MB L2 cache) could take just 8 times the area of Allwinner A20, without including L3 cache. That would mean 48$ just in silicon, with naive extrapolation. Also, there are two versions of the chip: the high-end ("Mars") and a low-end ("Earth"), may be without L3 cache ([1]). With progressive die reduction, it could be even cheaper, if demand reaches enough critical mass (e.g. billions of chips for routing devices, servers, etc.). In addition to Cavium, there is another potential competitor: Mediatek (after Atheros aquisition), selling crazy cheap SoCs for SOHO routers. What if they start in the high-end and server market? (they would need just IP available from ARM for the inter-core memory routing, for making cheap SoCs). [1] https://tweakimg.net/files/upload/HC27.24.320-Mars-64core-Gao-Phytium-v1.0.pdf https://tweakimg.net/files/upload/HC27.24.320-Mars-64core-Ga...
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    SoC production isn't simply a question of die size it's a question of yield. Larger dies would have smaller yields simply because say you have 25% defected dies with an 4 core SOC, when you scale it up to something 8 times it's size your defects are going to have a very severe effect on your yields to the point where you can't actually produce SoCs above a certain die size simply because it's more likely than not that all or almost all of them will have defects. Also the older A53 copy paste SoCs are cheap, the licensing is cheap, and little to no R&D went into them, Allwinner, MediaTek etc. all have sub 10$ bargain bin SOCs (The A20 is after all a 3-4 year old 55nm SOC that wasn't cutting edge when it came out ;)) but their high end SOCs aren't dirt cheap they are just sufficiently below the likes of Qualcomm and Samsung to be competitive. Don't get me wrong eventually can get there, but the question is do you even need to get there, by the time you can get a Mars like SoC down to a 50$ price point would that SOC be even relevant? Technology constantly evolves x86 and even ARM CPUs are not cheaper, they even increase in costs in as the likes Samsung and Qualcomm charge more year after year and even MediaTek is now stepping into the higher costs higher margins game also.
  - xamlhacker 10y ago
    Atheros was acquired by Qualcomm, not Mediatek.
    - faragon 10y ago
      Yes, thank you. Mediatek acquired Ralink.
  - faragon 10y ago
    I meant Allwinner A64 (4 core ARMv8 Cortex A53, 512KB L2 cache, 128KB L1 cache, 2 core Mali 400, video interface, etc.), and not A20 (4 core Cortex A7).
  - faragon 10y ago
    I meant Allwinner A64 (4 core ARMv8 Cortex A53, 512KB L2 cache, 128KB L1 cache, 2 core Mali 400, video interface, etc.), and not A20 (4 core Cortex A7).
  - 10y ago
- PieterH 10y ago
  It's more a question of when than whether, isn't it... $1000 for a CPU today means $50 in six years, if there is real competition, which there is here.
  - faragon 10y ago
    Well, I just would like a 64 ARMv8 core cheap board for less than 100$, in few years :-D
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Also 6 years old, people aren't building servers today with Xeon E7530's.
  - GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
    >It's more a question of when than whether, isn't it. No. That kind of cost reduction came mostly from process shrinks and there have been plenty of articles on HN explaining why that's coming to an end in the very near future. Even Intel, the process leader, had to end its "tick-tock" cycle with its latest set of chips.

by faragon 10y ago

dogma1138 10y ago

They aren't going to sell these chips anywhere close to 50$, high end mobile phone SoC's cost 60-100$ these days, even the Chinese SoC's are not that cheap MediaTek's Helio X25/X20 are "cheap" because they aren't Snapdragon 823 Exynos 8893 100$ price parts, but they are around 30-50$ also (and could be even more, since a bargain bin MT6582 MediaTek ARMv7 SoC costs 8-10$). This isn't going to be fabbed in China, almost none of the chinese SoC's are fabbed locally the foundries are not built for that the process is too old and overall they are not intended to produce such complex silicon, there is much more to a process than just the lithography and even that is not straightforward because you actually need to do tricks to get to sub 28nm today as you often end up using higher wavelength light since extreme UV and other similar technologies aren't there yet. The 64-core SoC's are going to be multi-100$ parts, probably closer to the 1000$ mark regardless if they are chinese or not, Cavium SoC's are about as expensive or even more expensive than some of the Intel parts they are competing against. If China introduces a 64 core ARMv8 SoC at 50$ Intel won't be worried, it would panic to the point of them using the backdoor everyone on HN think they have via AMT rigging the election so Trump can win and then convincing him to nuke China might actually happen. That said a 50$ 64 core ARMv8 SoC is pretty much impossible to make even in China, by China, for China.

faragon 10y ago
"That said a 50$ 64 core ARMv8 SoC is pretty much impossible to make even in China, by China, for China." Allwinner A20 (4 core ARMv8 Cortex A53, 512KB L2 cache, 128KB L1 cache, 2 core Mali 400, video interface, etc.) costs 6$ in volume. So I guess just in plain die area, the 64 core Mars ARMv8 (32MB L2 cache) could take just 8 times the area of Allwinner A20, without including L3 cache. That would mean 48$ just in silicon, with naive extrapolation. Also, there are two versions of the chip: the high-end ("Mars") and a low-end ("Earth"), may be without L3 cache ([1]). With progressive die reduction, it could be even cheaper, if demand reaches enough critical mass (e.g. billions of chips for routing devices, servers, etc.). In addition to Cavium, there is another potential competitor: Mediatek (after Atheros aquisition), selling crazy cheap SoCs for SOHO routers. What if they start in the high-end and server market? (they would need just IP available from ARM for the inter-core memory routing, for making cheap SoCs). [1] https://tweakimg.net/files/upload/HC27.24.320-Mars-64core-Gao-Phytium-v1.0.pdf https://tweakimg.net/files/upload/HC27.24.320-Mars-64core-Ga...
- dogma1138 10y ago
  SoC production isn't simply a question of die size it's a question of yield. Larger dies would have smaller yields simply because say you have 25% defected dies with an 4 core SOC, when you scale it up to something 8 times it's size your defects are going to have a very severe effect on your yields to the point where you can't actually produce SoCs above a certain die size simply because it's more likely than not that all or almost all of them will have defects. Also the older A53 copy paste SoCs are cheap, the licensing is cheap, and little to no R&D went into them, Allwinner, MediaTek etc. all have sub 10$ bargain bin SOCs (The A20 is after all a 3-4 year old 55nm SOC that wasn't cutting edge when it came out ;)) but their high end SOCs aren't dirt cheap they are just sufficiently below the likes of Qualcomm and Samsung to be competitive. Don't get me wrong eventually can get there, but the question is do you even need to get there, by the time you can get a Mars like SoC down to a 50$ price point would that SOC be even relevant? Technology constantly evolves x86 and even ARM CPUs are not cheaper, they even increase in costs in as the likes Samsung and Qualcomm charge more year after year and even MediaTek is now stepping into the higher costs higher margins game also.
- xamlhacker 10y ago
  Atheros was acquired by Qualcomm, not Mediatek.
  - faragon 10y ago
    Yes, thank you. Mediatek acquired Ralink.
- faragon 10y ago
  I meant Allwinner A64 (4 core ARMv8 Cortex A53, 512KB L2 cache, 128KB L1 cache, 2 core Mali 400, video interface, etc.), and not A20 (4 core Cortex A7).
- faragon 10y ago
  I meant Allwinner A64 (4 core ARMv8 Cortex A53, 512KB L2 cache, 128KB L1 cache, 2 core Mali 400, video interface, etc.), and not A20 (4 core Cortex A7).
- 10y ago
PieterH 10y ago
It's more a question of when than whether, isn't it... $1000 for a CPU today means $50 in six years, if there is real competition, which there is here.
- faragon 10y ago
  Well, I just would like a 64 ARMv8 core cheap board for less than 100$, in few years :-D
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Also 6 years old, people aren't building servers today with Xeon E7530's.
- GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
  >It's more a question of when than whether, isn't it. No. That kind of cost reduction came mostly from process shrinks and there have been plenty of articles on HN explaining why that's coming to an end in the very near future. Even Intel, the process leader, had to end its "tick-tock" cycle with its latest set of chips.