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SBCs already are extremely flexible for their market segment. Their market segment just happens to NOT be "developer workstations". The developer workstation ma

by Klinky 6y ago

SBCs already are extremely flexible for their market segment. Their market segment just happens to NOT be "developer workstations". The developer workstation market is heavily dominated by x86 because the ecosystem and performance per $ offered by AMD/Intel/nVidia is due to trillions of dollars in development costs over the past decades. ARM is not directly compatible with that ecosystem, so has to re-invent a lot of wheels, and the capital is not there to go head-to-head in commodity PC market when you have a compatibility disadvantage, and your high-end performance is not comparable. Adding an actual system OEM/integrator means another person needs convincing there is a market and adds additional markup. The struggle to put together functional boards is just indicative of the complexity of the problem. Even some x86 boards are garbage.

StillBored 6y ago
Except that "Developer workstation" is really "generic product that conforms to multiple targets". Drop a quad port NIC into one of them and you have a router, put a RAID controller in and you have a NAS. Attach a high speed A/D and you have an industrial controller, etc. None of those options really work for the majority of the arm SBC market which are repurposed phone SOCs. Yes, they are flexible as long as a large part of the target is touchscreen + wifi and attaching a USB SDR. Or they get misused as massively overspeced micro controllers that happen to need a network connection (aka IoT). So its really that latter case where they are successful because they are "generic" microcontrollers. Many of the uses cases would be far better/cheaper handled with a cortex-M and a custom board. But using a $35 rpi to read a GPIO and send a packet is the "generic" solution for someone not willing to spend $500k on a custom design to create 1k devices at $2 each.
- Klinky 6y ago
  I added more color in my comment, but who wants to take on the supportability of your desire for third-party quad-port NIC or RAID controller? Even the DIY enthusiast PC market is a small % of the revenue made by the PC/Server market as a whole. It's already niche, and making a niche of a niche, sounds like a great way to pigeon-hole yourself into unprofitability. Too expensive for microcontroller/kiosk, not enough volume due to those unwilling to take on the compatibility concerns around ARM. The microcontroller and kiosk markets are actually relatively large, and a good niche to be in. Adding the complexity needed to make a full-blown x86 competitor is extremely risky. There are integrators out there using ARM in networking and NAS gear, but they are building the board to their spec, validating it against a small sampling of add-in hardware, screwing the box shut with a "warranty void" sticker on it, and charging a healthy markup for the service.
  - StillBored 6y ago
    Its called the "Edge" market for one. And just to extend the "whitebox" market is the largest slice of the x86 market. But even so, I just saw a number the other day that the desktop market is ~12B in revenue for intel. So, its might be small for intel, but that would be a huge segment for many of companies in the arm ecosystem. Think of what would happen if a company like rockchip managed to acquire 20% of that market. PS: I'm aware of the vendors building ARM NAS's, security appliances, and such, and if you look at their product lines, overwhelmingly they are x86. The arm parts form a small fraction of their designs. Frequently the lowest end products with the highest volume and tightest margins. The higher end products are just boring old pentium/xeon parts with fat margins. ex: https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/series/smb https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/series/smb vs https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/series/home https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/series/home (and only a portion of those are arm) PPS: I think a lot of people are really confused about the "desktop" market. The desktop market is an artificial segmentation of a generic technology stack. Intel puts it in a different bucket for business reporting reasons, but the core technology is the same between a random desktop board they make $ on and a random board like those in the synology appliances above. The largest differentiator tends to be whether or not the part supports ECC (and some of the desktop parts come with that feature) and who supports it. So from a technology perspective its the same fundamental thing in a 2U chassis with 16 spinning drives as it is in the tower under a desk. Which is why in the parent article you see a 32 core "Server" being sold as a workstation. It could just as well be sold as a NAS. The problem here, is like those arm NAS's the arm vendors are only shooting for the high volume markets, which naturally happen to also have the lowest margins because they are the most competitive... Or the ones with the highest margins. See the problem? AMD unlike intel doesn't do as much artificial product differentiation (which is why a lot of people like them). Their server class parts are basically the same as the desktop, they differ only in scale. So they make the margins in the areas that are truly low volume/high technology while scooping up volume with thin margins elsewhere.

by Klinky 6y ago

StillBored 6y ago

Except that "Developer workstation" is really "generic product that conforms to multiple targets". Drop a quad port NIC into one of them and you have a router, put a RAID controller in and you have a NAS. Attach a high speed A/D and you have an industrial controller, etc. None of those options really work for the majority of the arm SBC market which are repurposed phone SOCs. Yes, they are flexible as long as a large part of the target is touchscreen + wifi and attaching a USB SDR. Or they get misused as massively overspeced micro controllers that happen to need a network connection (aka IoT). So its really that latter case where they are successful because they are "generic" microcontrollers. Many of the uses cases would be far better/cheaper handled with a cortex-M and a custom board. But using a $35 rpi to read a GPIO and send a packet is the "generic" solution for someone not willing to spend $500k on a custom design to create 1k devices at $2 each.

Klinky 6y ago
I added more color in my comment, but who wants to take on the supportability of your desire for third-party quad-port NIC or RAID controller? Even the DIY enthusiast PC market is a small % of the revenue made by the PC/Server market as a whole. It's already niche, and making a niche of a niche, sounds like a great way to pigeon-hole yourself into unprofitability. Too expensive for microcontroller/kiosk, not enough volume due to those unwilling to take on the compatibility concerns around ARM. The microcontroller and kiosk markets are actually relatively large, and a good niche to be in. Adding the complexity needed to make a full-blown x86 competitor is extremely risky. There are integrators out there using ARM in networking and NAS gear, but they are building the board to their spec, validating it against a small sampling of add-in hardware, screwing the box shut with a "warranty void" sticker on it, and charging a healthy markup for the service.
- StillBored 6y ago
  Its called the "Edge" market for one. And just to extend the "whitebox" market is the largest slice of the x86 market. But even so, I just saw a number the other day that the desktop market is ~12B in revenue for intel. So, its might be small for intel, but that would be a huge segment for many of companies in the arm ecosystem. Think of what would happen if a company like rockchip managed to acquire 20% of that market. PS: I'm aware of the vendors building ARM NAS's, security appliances, and such, and if you look at their product lines, overwhelmingly they are x86. The arm parts form a small fraction of their designs. Frequently the lowest end products with the highest volume and tightest margins. The higher end products are just boring old pentium/xeon parts with fat margins. ex: https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/series/smb https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/series/smb vs https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/series/home https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/series/home (and only a portion of those are arm) PPS: I think a lot of people are really confused about the "desktop" market. The desktop market is an artificial segmentation of a generic technology stack. Intel puts it in a different bucket for business reporting reasons, but the core technology is the same between a random desktop board they make $ on and a random board like those in the synology appliances above. The largest differentiator tends to be whether or not the part supports ECC (and some of the desktop parts come with that feature) and who supports it. So from a technology perspective its the same fundamental thing in a 2U chassis with 16 spinning drives as it is in the tower under a desk. Which is why in the parent article you see a 32 core "Server" being sold as a workstation. It could just as well be sold as a NAS. The problem here, is like those arm NAS's the arm vendors are only shooting for the high volume markets, which naturally happen to also have the lowest margins because they are the most competitive... Or the ones with the highest margins. See the problem? AMD unlike intel doesn't do as much artificial product differentiation (which is why a lot of people like them). Their server class parts are basically the same as the desktop, they differ only in scale. So they make the margins in the areas that are truly low volume/high technology while scooping up volume with thin margins elsewhere.