3 ms·

Yes, but without the pipeline and the complex instruction set! That said, it will be interesting when one of these SOC vendors decides to make a 'south bridge'

Yes, but without the pipeline and the complex instruction set! That said, it will be interesting when one of these SOC vendors decides to make a 'south bridge' serial I/O bus (I'm thinking like four LVDS channels clocked at 100MHz)which then connects to a selection of peripheral modules. That would give customers a 2 chip solution that could have a lot more variety than trying to stock 100+ SKUs to meet various market needs.

girvo 5y ago
Any idea why it hasn't been attempted yet by one of these vendors?
- ChuckMcM 5y ago
  If things are anything at all like they were when I was at Intel then it is an inability to handle risk. Wafer starts are expensive, masks are expensive, margins on this sort of processor are tight. Basically that adds up to nobody wanting to be "that guy" (and it is always a guy) who pushes through the idea that costs the company a few million dollars. As a result, unless some customer both specifically asks for this, and commits to enough volume to insure that they will at least break even, they aren't going to risk it.
userbinator 5y ago
'south bridge' serial I/O bus (I'm thinking like four LVDS channels clocked at 100MHz) You mean something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Media_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Media_Interface ?
- ChuckMcM 5y ago
  Yes, although I'd go with the original (and simpler) Intel Hub Architecture concepts. Interestingly enough you can do this on your own using the RISC-V architecture and FPGA's with high speed serial transceivers. So it isn't like you have to be a chip company to build something like it, it just means you're willing to spend way more to implement a RISC-V system than you technically "have" to :-). Esden tweeted today (https://twitter.com/esden/status/1420498544960557062 https://twitter.com/esden/status/1420498544960557062) they have Linux running on the ICE40UP5K which is pretty amazing. That FPGA only has a few LVDS pins so it would be challenging!

girvo 5y ago

Any idea why it hasn't been attempted yet by one of these vendors?

ChuckMcM 5y ago
If things are anything at all like they were when I was at Intel then it is an inability to handle risk. Wafer starts are expensive, masks are expensive, margins on this sort of processor are tight. Basically that adds up to nobody wanting to be "that guy" (and it is always a guy) who pushes through the idea that costs the company a few million dollars. As a result, unless some customer both specifically asks for this, and commits to enough volume to insure that they will at least break even, they aren't going to risk it.

userbinator 5y ago

'south bridge' serial I/O bus (I'm thinking like four LVDS channels clocked at 100MHz) You mean something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Media_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Media_Interface ?

ChuckMcM 5y ago
Yes, although I'd go with the original (and simpler) Intel Hub Architecture concepts. Interestingly enough you can do this on your own using the RISC-V architecture and FPGA's with high speed serial transceivers. So it isn't like you have to be a chip company to build something like it, it just means you're willing to spend way more to implement a RISC-V system than you technically "have" to :-). Esden tweeted today (https://twitter.com/esden/status/1420498544960557062 https://twitter.com/esden/status/1420498544960557062) they have Linux running on the ICE40UP5K which is pretty amazing. That FPGA only has a few LVDS pins so it would be challenging!