5 ms·

A few nits to pick... 1) PowerPC is pretty alive and well. The Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii (U), and Playstation 3 all use PowerPC chips. There are a lot of these. I

by ansy 15y ago

A few nits to pick... 1) PowerPC is pretty alive and well. The Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii (U), and Playstation 3 all use PowerPC chips. There are a lot of these. IBM's Linux/AIX servers are all PowerPC and IBM incidentally makes the chips for the above game consoles as well. Not to mention the number of PowerPC chips in cars and other embedded devices dwarfs all the above in units sold. 2) Intel (probably) got out of the Xscale game not just because of hubris, but because it was necessarily enriching its competitor through licensing fees of the ARM architecture. Unless Intel could buy ARM, which it couldn't due to anti-trust, it should probably seek out a home grown solution instead of sealing its fate as another fab for ARM's designs. I'm not sure Intel didn't see the writing on the wall, it just failed to execute on a solution. Intel was probably very wary of trying to make a new architecture after the failure of the Itanium so it concentrated its efforts on a low powered x86 aka Atom. Unfortunately this was and still is a colossal failure. Intel still has no products for low powered devices and the arguments for an x86 solution are starting to fall apart fast. 3) Apple's success is a culmination of Steve Job's vision and Tim Cook's operational mastery. Apple's products before Tim Cook were beautifully designed, over priced, and under performing. Apple's product line without Steve Jobs was boring and unappealing. These last few years have been a golden age for Apple. To expect things to only get better from here would be to place all the emphasis on the company and ignore people inside it, not to mention history. I expect Tim Cook to keep Apple in a very competitive place while he's around, but companies have a tendency to lose their way. Just ask HP.

supercanuck 15y ago
Regarding #1, The video game console market is in decline and has been since 2009.
- sherkund 15y ago
  Um, what do you mean by "decline"? That the rate of growth has plateaued ( http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38279676/ns/today-today_tech/ http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38279676/ns/today-today_tech/ )? Or something else? I'm not trying to be a pissant, I just haven't heard such an opinion before.
- chaostheory 15y ago
  With iOS and Android devices, given their faster hardware evolution cycle compare to traditional consoles (1 year vs 8 years), it will only get worse for Nintendo. I think both Sony and MS can adapt better since they have real mobile devices.
- bigiain 15y ago
  True, but the real "alive and wellness" of the PowerPC family is in embedded devices like engine management computers for cars. I think one of the big reasons behind Apple pulling out of PowerPC was that Intel were developing for the personal computer (and commodity server) aspects of cpu chip use and reacting to the requirements of that market, where Motorola were much more beholden to companies like Ford and Toyota and Hyundai, who wanted long-production-life products for 10year lifespan fuel injection or antilock brake systems. Apple couldn't swing power over the future development roadmap for PowerPC at Motorola in the same way that HP/Compaq/Dell managed with Intel.
- DerekL 15y ago
  That's probably because of the recession, and because the current home consoles were introduced in 2005 and 2006.
- sbochins 15y ago
  People tend to buy consoles when they are newer. This range of consoles have been out for quite a while.
leon_ 15y ago
> over priced, and under performing For me they always performed well and the reduced need for maintenance saved me a lot of time (which might equal to money for some people).
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- ido 15y ago
  I guess it depends which timeline we are talking here. The last few years of the PPC era saw macs that were significantly slower than their intel/amd counterparts.
  - yardie 15y ago
    PPC era saw macs that were significantly slower than their intel/amd counterparts. This is subjectively correct. The G4 and G5 had Altivec coprocessing units which were the precursors to SIMD and GPGPU. A few apps could take advantage of it to do video processing and vector calculations but most cross platform apps(like Office or Photoshop) just didn't use it at all, putting the G5 at a severe disadvantage. Also, Intel was, sort of, cheating with their NetBurst architecture. Deeper and deeper pipelines allowed them to get higher clock speeds without adding much actual performance. Ops just sat in the queue longer, but their predictive caching algorithm was very advanced (I'll give them that). Once they got as far as they could go, clock wise, with the P4 they simply started packing more processors on the die (core duo). In fact, their saving grace came from their competitor AMD with the x86_64 extension set. PPC had the ability to go much faster (as seen in the 3GHz X360, PS3) they just couldn't get the die smaller nor the power down. IBM had the performance advantage with their Power7 CPUs but weren't really interested in the consumer CPU market and left Apple holding the bag. Apple wanted smaller, low power CPUs for their laptops and found it in Intel. Windows compatibility (at least through VM) was icing on the cake.
    - ansy 15y ago
      Some corrections. NetBurst was not 'cheating' by using a long pipeline to get higher clock speeds. NetBurst was purposely designed to get higher clock speeds therefore better performance. Intel thought it would get to 4 ghz, 5 ghz, 6 ghz, and beyond on NetBurst which would theoretically be better than what we have today if it had worked. Obviously it didn't. The Core Duo was not based on NetBurst (i.e. Pentium 4). It was based on the Pentium M which was an improved Pentium 3. The Core Duo and everything that came after it are based on the old P6 architecture that started with the Pentium Pro. Intel's saving grace was going back to the P6 and abandoning NetBurst. Intel had adopted x86_64 on NetBurst and it was worthless. PowerPC can get smaller dies and lower power consumption just fine. In fact most PowerPC chips today are smaller and lower power than the G4 ever was. Motorola makes them all day long for automaters, defense contractors, and network device makers. The problem was Motorola's other customers didn't care about performance. Nobody wanted to run Photoshop on guided missiles. The PPC 970 (i.e. G5) was powerful, but IBM made CPUs for big iron. When a CPU ran hotter than expected it was the mechanical engineer's problem to fix in the enclosure. IBM just didn't need to figure out how to make chips with tight operational constraints. IBM didn't have the expertise to get the PPC 970 to work in a Power Book and IBM didn't have any incentive moving forward to build that expertise. It just so happened that Intel was in the middle of its NetBurst epiphany. NetBurst was bad. Centrino was great. The Core Duo was the future. Now Intel was talking Apple's language. PS. IBM's POWER7 just came out in 2010. The PPC 970 that Apple called the G5 was a low power version of the POWER4.
pmjordan 15y ago
Intel apparently is still an ARM licensee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale#Sale_of_PXA_processor_line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale#Sale_of_PXA_processor_li... I'm guessing the licensing fees are peanuts to Intel and probably come with patent indemnification.
- ansy 15y ago
  Apparently ARM does list Intel as a license holder of the ARM11 and ARM7 (i.e. classic) designs. It is not listed, though, as a licensor of new Cortex designs. [1] Note that an ARM license has both an up front fee and a per unit royalty. Without Xscale, Intel's royalty fees would be zero meaning as you say it is free to maintain going forward. I can only guess why the license didn't go with Xscale, but I see Marvell is only listed as an ARM9 license holder so maybe it just didn't want the ARM7 and ARM11 licenses. Perhaps, too, there are other complications that come with transferring an ARM license in the contract language or patent arrangements. [1] http://www.arm.com/products/processors/licensees.php http://www.arm.com/products/processors/licensees.php

by ansy 15y ago

supercanuck 15y ago

Regarding #1, The video game console market is in decline and has been since 2009.

sherkund 15y ago
Um, what do you mean by "decline"? That the rate of growth has plateaued ( http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38279676/ns/today-today_tech/ http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38279676/ns/today-today_tech/ )? Or something else? I'm not trying to be a pissant, I just haven't heard such an opinion before.
chaostheory 15y ago
With iOS and Android devices, given their faster hardware evolution cycle compare to traditional consoles (1 year vs 8 years), it will only get worse for Nintendo. I think both Sony and MS can adapt better since they have real mobile devices.
bigiain 15y ago
True, but the real "alive and wellness" of the PowerPC family is in embedded devices like engine management computers for cars. I think one of the big reasons behind Apple pulling out of PowerPC was that Intel were developing for the personal computer (and commodity server) aspects of cpu chip use and reacting to the requirements of that market, where Motorola were much more beholden to companies like Ford and Toyota and Hyundai, who wanted long-production-life products for 10year lifespan fuel injection or antilock brake systems. Apple couldn't swing power over the future development roadmap for PowerPC at Motorola in the same way that HP/Compaq/Dell managed with Intel.
DerekL 15y ago
That's probably because of the recession, and because the current home consoles were introduced in 2005 and 2006.
sbochins 15y ago
People tend to buy consoles when they are newer. This range of consoles have been out for quite a while.

leon_ 15y ago

> over priced, and under performing For me they always performed well and the reduced need for maintenance saved me a lot of time (which might equal to money for some people).

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
ido 15y ago
I guess it depends which timeline we are talking here. The last few years of the PPC era saw macs that were significantly slower than their intel/amd counterparts.
- yardie 15y ago
  PPC era saw macs that were significantly slower than their intel/amd counterparts. This is subjectively correct. The G4 and G5 had Altivec coprocessing units which were the precursors to SIMD and GPGPU. A few apps could take advantage of it to do video processing and vector calculations but most cross platform apps(like Office or Photoshop) just didn't use it at all, putting the G5 at a severe disadvantage. Also, Intel was, sort of, cheating with their NetBurst architecture. Deeper and deeper pipelines allowed them to get higher clock speeds without adding much actual performance. Ops just sat in the queue longer, but their predictive caching algorithm was very advanced (I'll give them that). Once they got as far as they could go, clock wise, with the P4 they simply started packing more processors on the die (core duo). In fact, their saving grace came from their competitor AMD with the x86_64 extension set. PPC had the ability to go much faster (as seen in the 3GHz X360, PS3) they just couldn't get the die smaller nor the power down. IBM had the performance advantage with their Power7 CPUs but weren't really interested in the consumer CPU market and left Apple holding the bag. Apple wanted smaller, low power CPUs for their laptops and found it in Intel. Windows compatibility (at least through VM) was icing on the cake.
  - ansy 15y ago
    Some corrections. NetBurst was not 'cheating' by using a long pipeline to get higher clock speeds. NetBurst was purposely designed to get higher clock speeds therefore better performance. Intel thought it would get to 4 ghz, 5 ghz, 6 ghz, and beyond on NetBurst which would theoretically be better than what we have today if it had worked. Obviously it didn't. The Core Duo was not based on NetBurst (i.e. Pentium 4). It was based on the Pentium M which was an improved Pentium 3. The Core Duo and everything that came after it are based on the old P6 architecture that started with the Pentium Pro. Intel's saving grace was going back to the P6 and abandoning NetBurst. Intel had adopted x86_64 on NetBurst and it was worthless. PowerPC can get smaller dies and lower power consumption just fine. In fact most PowerPC chips today are smaller and lower power than the G4 ever was. Motorola makes them all day long for automaters, defense contractors, and network device makers. The problem was Motorola's other customers didn't care about performance. Nobody wanted to run Photoshop on guided missiles. The PPC 970 (i.e. G5) was powerful, but IBM made CPUs for big iron. When a CPU ran hotter than expected it was the mechanical engineer's problem to fix in the enclosure. IBM just didn't need to figure out how to make chips with tight operational constraints. IBM didn't have the expertise to get the PPC 970 to work in a Power Book and IBM didn't have any incentive moving forward to build that expertise. It just so happened that Intel was in the middle of its NetBurst epiphany. NetBurst was bad. Centrino was great. The Core Duo was the future. Now Intel was talking Apple's language. PS. IBM's POWER7 just came out in 2010. The PPC 970 that Apple called the G5 was a low power version of the POWER4.

pmjordan 15y ago

Intel apparently is still an ARM licensee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale#Sale_of_PXA_processor_line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale#Sale_of_PXA_processor_li... I'm guessing the licensing fees are peanuts to Intel and probably come with patent indemnification.

ansy 15y ago
Apparently ARM does list Intel as a license holder of the ARM11 and ARM7 (i.e. classic) designs. It is not listed, though, as a licensor of new Cortex designs. [1] Note that an ARM license has both an up front fee and a per unit royalty. Without Xscale, Intel's royalty fees would be zero meaning as you say it is free to maintain going forward. I can only guess why the license didn't go with Xscale, but I see Marvell is only listed as an ARM9 license holder so maybe it just didn't want the ARM7 and ARM11 licenses. Perhaps, too, there are other complications that come with transferring an ARM license in the contract language or patent arrangements. [1] http://www.arm.com/products/processors/licensees.php http://www.arm.com/products/processors/licensees.php