3 ms·

Genuine question - other than increasing the number of players, what is the horizon of value for new processors to begin with ? Is there anything more impactful

Genuine question - other than increasing the number of players, what is the horizon of value for new processors to begin with ? Is there anything more impactful than squeezing a bit more performance/watt ?

seibelj 7y ago
If Moore’s law is indeed over and quantum computing isn’t a silver bullet (even if they get it to work), then the future will be clever design rather than raw horsepower in order to increase the speed of computation.
Havoc 7y ago
It has the potential to spawn a new eco-system. Like if you look at what happened with the raspberry pis. Other players could have pulled that off technically but didn't attempt it.
- rrss 7y ago
  raspberry pi didn't really have a new processor though. The original had an ARM11 core (designed and verified by ARM) that was almost a decade old when the raspberry pi launched.
  - ozim 7y ago
    They also leveraged existing Linux drivers and other hardware that was available to integrate without big problems. Spawning new ecosystem is not about making something completely from scratch like processor. One have to align a lot of stars in the sky to make that happen. They had a specific goal and niche where they planted the seed for RPi.
artemonster 7y ago
cost. it is stupidly expensive to include any sort of commercial MCU core(s) in your chip. Ancedata: ARM won't even talk with small ASIC fabless companies, even if they are willing to shell out big upfront costs and royalties per chip that ARM demands. Having free or affordable alternaties is a great driving force for the industry.
- seemslegit 7y ago
  That makes sense but goes under the "increasing the number of players" benefits
- lechienquipete 7y ago
  > ARM won't even talk with small ASIC fabless companies, even if they are willing to shell out big upfront costs and royalties per chip that ARM demands [Citation needed] There's literally 0 upfront costs for a Cortex-M3 [0] [0] https://developer.arm.com/products/designstart https://developer.arm.com/products/designstart
  - nrclark 7y ago
    That's pretty recent for ARM, as they face growing pressure from companies switching to RISC-V for their internal MCUs.
- petra 7y ago
  What about other companies besides ARM, licensing cores. Are their costs exaggerated ? Are they affordable for processor customization ?
amelius 7y ago
Solving side-channel attacks without hurting performance.

seibelj 7y ago

If Moore’s law is indeed over and quantum computing isn’t a silver bullet (even if they get it to work), then the future will be clever design rather than raw horsepower in order to increase the speed of computation.

Havoc 7y ago

It has the potential to spawn a new eco-system. Like if you look at what happened with the raspberry pis. Other players could have pulled that off technically but didn't attempt it.

rrss 7y ago
raspberry pi didn't really have a new processor though. The original had an ARM11 core (designed and verified by ARM) that was almost a decade old when the raspberry pi launched.
- ozim 7y ago
  They also leveraged existing Linux drivers and other hardware that was available to integrate without big problems. Spawning new ecosystem is not about making something completely from scratch like processor. One have to align a lot of stars in the sky to make that happen. They had a specific goal and niche where they planted the seed for RPi.

artemonster 7y ago

cost. it is stupidly expensive to include any sort of commercial MCU core(s) in your chip. Ancedata: ARM won't even talk with small ASIC fabless companies, even if they are willing to shell out big upfront costs and royalties per chip that ARM demands. Having free or affordable alternaties is a great driving force for the industry.

seemslegit 7y ago
That makes sense but goes under the "increasing the number of players" benefits
lechienquipete 7y ago
> ARM won't even talk with small ASIC fabless companies, even if they are willing to shell out big upfront costs and royalties per chip that ARM demands [Citation needed] There's literally 0 upfront costs for a Cortex-M3 [0] [0] https://developer.arm.com/products/designstart https://developer.arm.com/products/designstart
- nrclark 7y ago
  That's pretty recent for ARM, as they face growing pressure from companies switching to RISC-V for their internal MCUs.
petra 7y ago
What about other companies besides ARM, licensing cores. Are their costs exaggerated ? Are they affordable for processor customization ?

amelius 7y ago

Solving side-channel attacks without hurting performance.