4 ms·

> nobody really wants FPGA fabric on a CPU. Not true... Xilinx sells a lot of their Zynq, MPSoC, and RFSoC chips. Though I guess those are more CPU on an FPGA.

tonyarkles 3y ago
Intel doesn’t really make low end CPUs like that though. The Zynq is an awesome little chip and there really isn’t anything on the market to compare it to as far as I know. From my perspective sitting on the sidelines of this industry, Intel went all-in assuming companies would want FPGAs in the data centre the same way they want GPUs in the data centre and that bet didn’t pan out.
- glitchc 3y ago
  Sounds like intel is mismanaged.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    It certainly was. It remains to be seen if it is. If they'd been made a performant (as in, non-x86) low-end CPU, then they wouldn't have lost mobile and be competing with ARM now. Intel of the past few decades learned the wrong lesson from their history. You can climb the value chain to riches, but once you're at the top you still need to seed the earth for the next generation of profits. And that means cheap entry points and volume.
    - sitkack 3y ago
      The low end always eats the high end, always. Intel sold StrongARM to Marvell and that is some of the Arm IP they are fighting against in hyperscaler space. https://www.theregister.com/2006/06/27/intel_sells_xscale/ https://www.theregister.com/2006/06/27/intel_sells_xscale/ https://www.networkworld.com/article/3574013/marvell-exits-the-general-purpose-arm-server-business.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/3574013/marvell-exits-t...
- mikepavone 3y ago
  Intel does have the Cyclone 5 SoC which integrates Cortex-A9 cores much like the Zynq 7000 series. That product predates the acquisition though and they don't seem to have released anything to compete with newer entries in the Zynq lineup
  - rwmj 3y ago
    But the bet was customers would buy Xeons with an FPGA block that would "do magic". What magic it would do and how you'd program it in a sane way was never specified in great detail. In any case for those that really want this it turns out you can put the FPGA on the end of a regular PCIe link and get all the same benefits. Edit: By the way there is some niche research of the FPGA in core (which don't work if the FPGA is over PCIe). This paper describes a way to rearrange memory using a programmable FPGA-based memory controller to optimize database table accesses: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2109.14349.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2109.14349.pdf
    - sitkack 3y ago
      Intel suffers from the build it and they will come flaw of engineering. I want multiple FPGAs in the CPU. Replace the PMU with an FPGA, replace the MMU with an FPGA, and by replace I mean augment and extend. Of course an FPGA can't do all the work of fixed blocks. The ultimate problem is politics inside organizations and the lack of any sort of concrete creative thinking. That Intel isn't incorporating Altera into IFS and allowing IFS customers to include FPGA fabric into their designs is predictable but both astonishing. x86 and Altera as library IP only available on IFS would give them another 10 years of runway. Intel had the same market segmentation and lack of imagination in how they applied Optane. Heck, Optane should have had FPGA fabric in each dimm. It appears that each sub-sku has their own fiefdom and their own P&L that ignores ecosystem effects. Intel needs to be cleaned out.
numpad0 3y ago
Words of mouth I’ve seen on this was that the whole FPGA craze was a war on 5G tower equipment, which AMD/Xilinx took all, and Altera is now a dead weight on Intel.
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
Pretty sure the emulator community would be pretty psyched about a consumer priced fpga.

tonyarkles 3y ago

Intel doesn’t really make low end CPUs like that though. The Zynq is an awesome little chip and there really isn’t anything on the market to compare it to as far as I know. From my perspective sitting on the sidelines of this industry, Intel went all-in assuming companies would want FPGAs in the data centre the same way they want GPUs in the data centre and that bet didn’t pan out.

glitchc 3y ago
Sounds like intel is mismanaged.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  It certainly was. It remains to be seen if it is. If they'd been made a performant (as in, non-x86) low-end CPU, then they wouldn't have lost mobile and be competing with ARM now. Intel of the past few decades learned the wrong lesson from their history. You can climb the value chain to riches, but once you're at the top you still need to seed the earth for the next generation of profits. And that means cheap entry points and volume.
  - sitkack 3y ago
    The low end always eats the high end, always. Intel sold StrongARM to Marvell and that is some of the Arm IP they are fighting against in hyperscaler space. https://www.theregister.com/2006/06/27/intel_sells_xscale/ https://www.theregister.com/2006/06/27/intel_sells_xscale/ https://www.networkworld.com/article/3574013/marvell-exits-the-general-purpose-arm-server-business.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/3574013/marvell-exits-t...
mikepavone 3y ago
Intel does have the Cyclone 5 SoC which integrates Cortex-A9 cores much like the Zynq 7000 series. That product predates the acquisition though and they don't seem to have released anything to compete with newer entries in the Zynq lineup
- rwmj 3y ago
  But the bet was customers would buy Xeons with an FPGA block that would "do magic". What magic it would do and how you'd program it in a sane way was never specified in great detail. In any case for those that really want this it turns out you can put the FPGA on the end of a regular PCIe link and get all the same benefits. Edit: By the way there is some niche research of the FPGA in core (which don't work if the FPGA is over PCIe). This paper describes a way to rearrange memory using a programmable FPGA-based memory controller to optimize database table accesses: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2109.14349.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2109.14349.pdf
  - sitkack 3y ago
    Intel suffers from the build it and they will come flaw of engineering. I want multiple FPGAs in the CPU. Replace the PMU with an FPGA, replace the MMU with an FPGA, and by replace I mean augment and extend. Of course an FPGA can't do all the work of fixed blocks. The ultimate problem is politics inside organizations and the lack of any sort of concrete creative thinking. That Intel isn't incorporating Altera into IFS and allowing IFS customers to include FPGA fabric into their designs is predictable but both astonishing. x86 and Altera as library IP only available on IFS would give them another 10 years of runway. Intel had the same market segmentation and lack of imagination in how they applied Optane. Heck, Optane should have had FPGA fabric in each dimm. It appears that each sub-sku has their own fiefdom and their own P&L that ignores ecosystem effects. Intel needs to be cleaned out.

numpad0 3y ago

Words of mouth I’ve seen on this was that the whole FPGA craze was a war on 5G tower equipment, which AMD/Xilinx took all, and Altera is now a dead weight on Intel.

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

Pretty sure the emulator community would be pretty psyched about a consumer priced fpga.