We had the chance to meet the President of ARM, Mr. Tudor Brown, the man who stands right beside the CEO and this chap gave us many insights in the next few years to come.
At a Globalfoundries fab tour presentation, Tudor talked about ARM's new chip codenamed Eagle, a 2013 product that involves high-end graphics, multi core and increased security. This is something that might be powering many mobile phones and handheld devices at some point after 2013. The issue of seeing these chips in retail products is that it takes at least a year for manufacturer to develop a new mobile phone / handheld platform.
It's kind of cool when you get an insight of what is coming in 2013 timeframe, as three years is a lot in IT, due to its fast progression. At this time mobile internet will get even more mainstream, and it has already became an everyday stuff for many people. Let’s not forget to mention that Eagle core should materialize in Globalfoundries' 28nm bulk process and with time it will shift to 22nm.
Also, bear in mind that ARM CPU core is inside Qualcomm, Texas Instrument and Nvidia Tegra chips, and probably some other important ones that we forgot to mention, here, at 30000 feet in an airplane that still doesn’t offer any mobile internet to its passengers. (Thank God for that. I'm taking the rest of the day off. sub.ed.)
Cool stuff. Can't wait for dual core mobile phones! Mobile crunchers anyone?!
Bulldozer can't show up fast enough either. Bulldozer better live up to THIS: Image
It will either make history or make AMD history if it doesn't. Intel's thread count is getting higher than Fugger's bed sheets!
Talk about a bad title. ARM's had multi-core processor designs for
years. Proper title should be "ARM plans new uArch CPU in 2013".
As for DC mobile phone CPUs, that surely will happen in the next
1-2 years, but most will stay at single-core because of energy
consumption and because it's not really necessary yet for the
kinds of workloads phones / PDAs have.
As for DC mobile phone CPUs, that surely will happen in the next 1-2 years, but most will stay at single-core because of energy
consumption and because it's not really necessary yet for the
kinds of workloads phones / PDAs have.
I have owned many Windows Mobile PDA's, including some of the more "respected" ones, like HTC Touch Pro and Xperia. I always wondered why don't they put a more powerful CPU and more RAM in there, those PDA's are really slow and a PITA to work with.
I am really waiting for Nokia N900 to arrive, it will have a ARM Cortex A8 CPU @ 600MHz, PowerVR SGX graphics and 256MB RAM.
Best of all, it won't run Windows Mobile which is a CPU&RAM hog, but Linux based Maemo 5.
Now bring me multi-core ARM, I want it!!! We should have had it already. Li-Po batteries and power consumption is no problem...
Talk about a bad title. ARM's had multi-core processor designs for
years. Proper title should be "ARM plans new uArch CPU in 2013".
As for DC mobile phone CPUs, that surely will happen in the next
1-2 years, but most will stay at single-core because of energy
consumption and because it's not really necessary yet for the
kinds of workloads phones / PDAs have.
Seriously, there are so many multi-core ARM processors its not even funny.
I have owned many Windows Mobile PDA's, including some of the more "respected" ones, like HTC Touch Pro and Xperia. I always wondered why don't they put a more powerful CPU and more RAM in there, those PDA's are really slow and a PITA to work with.
You don't need to tell me, I've worked at a company that develops sw for
PDAs Yes, I know they are slow, but most of the time it's not because
of raw cpu speed, but rather because of missing os optimizations and the
slowness of the storage subsystem.
Why not a more powerful cpu? Power consumption (and to a lesser extent,
heat).
Quote:
Originally Posted by terente0081
Li-Po batteries and power consumption is no problem...
No it won't Most PDAs need to be recharged every day or two if used
extensively. Imagine a faster DC cpu, it wouldn't even last a day... and this
is a phone after all, for which it is important to be on 24/7.
SoC based at dual-core cortex A9 are already sampling @ TI, and nvidia probably is on their way to Tegra 2 also. ARM is selling dev-boards right now (IIRC) with it coupled with ARM's Mali 400 gpu. Smartbooks based in the dual-core qualcomm's snapdragon cpu (armv7 compatible architeture, like Cortex A series) should be avaiable at Q1 2010, and were shown in computex.
I always wondered why don't they put a more powerful CPU and more RAM in there, those PDA's are really slow and a PITA to work with.
Two words. Power consumption. Cpus working at faster clock speeds consume far more energy. Dual-cores means double of the core area, that, besides price, also doubles at least the idle and leakage power consumption (for an macro look at this, see HD57xx idle power vs HD58xx idle power). Also, heat as said above is also a problem. No-one want to put an heavy 1cm heatsink on top of their mobile-cpus. It increases cost, complexity and weight. Now we will see faster cpus because architecture improvements and mainly lithography reduction.
Volatile ram also consumes an obscene amount of power, when we are talking in mW range. 128MB of LP-DDR ram use up to 250mW under stress, and about 2mW in standby mode. That is the reason because Nokia N900 have 256mb of RAM + 768 Mb of swap, instead of 1GB of RAM. The price impact would be negligible, and the size of 1GB of ram is also not a problem (TI says that it can put up to 1GB of ram on the BGA package, along with OMAP 3 series SoC). It is power that blocks it.
Last edited by Manabu; 11-06-2009 at 10:50 AM.
Reason: couple of corrections and aditions
Seriously, there are so many multi-core ARM processors its not even funny.
Technically yes there are a lot of dual core ARM CPUs in current phones. The Qualcomm MSM7200 for example (used in the HTC Hero, HTC Touch Diamond 2 and many more) has an ARM9 and an ARM11 core, along with a graphics core (an ATI design) and some other more stuff. In other words, it's not very weird to have 2 CPU cores on a phone chipset. But to be honest though, the ARM9 core is mainly used to handle modem functions and can not be used by any application running on the OS.
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My system-The Good Stuff:
Silverstone TJ-09 Case | Corsair HX620 PSU |Auzentech X-Fi Forte Soundcard | Creative T3 2.1 Speakers | AudioTechnica AD900 Headphone |
My system-The Aged Stuff:
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By the way, I have an OMAP3 with 512MB RAM now, one of the first available AFAIK. Running a full Linux (Angstrom distro) and feeling quite snappy.
OMAP4 will be available early next year, with dual-core Cortex A9, for large volume purchasers (read: handset manufacturers). So, no need to wait till 2013 for dual-core ARM.
Thank you all for showing me the reasons a faster CPU and more RAM can't be used in phones right now... Dayum, I never thought power draw would be the issue because I always thought a better battery would be the solution.
I've been reading an article about the Cortex A8 but don't know what to make of it. When they go in technical terms, my english sucks... well, it sucks anyhow Is the Cortex A8 dual core? Or it just handles 2 instructions at the same time (2 pipelines)? Is it a better CPU than the ones currently used in Touch PRO, Xperia, Diamond or even Diamond 2? Or it's about the same and that's just marketing BS.
Technically yes there are a lot of dual core ARM CPUs in current phones. The Qualcomm MSM7200 for example (used in the HTC Hero, HTC Touch Diamond 2 and many more) has an ARM9 and an ARM11 core, along with a graphics core (an ATI design) and some other more stuff. In other words, it's not very weird to have 2 CPU cores on a phone chipset. But to be honest though, the ARM9 core is mainly used to handle modem functions and can not be used by any application running on the OS.
Thank you all for showing me the reasons a faster CPU and more RAM can't be used in phones right now... Dayum, I never thought power draw would be the issue because I always thought a better battery would be the solution.
Well, better bateries may help. People will always want an powerfull brick like N95 was, but it will not help so much. First because batteries technology is very slow... and even an doubled energy intensity will not afford double the performance. The 800mhz dual core Cortex A9 hard-macro has an TDP of 0.5W, while the 2Ghz one has an TDP of 1.9W, both on TMSC's GP process. TI is implementing their 1Ghz cortex A9 at the LP process, that will likely consume less power than that, but can't scale up to 2Ghz. So the power vs performance curve is even more steep.
Quote:
I've been reading an article about the Cortex A8 but don't know what to make of it. When they go in technical terms, my english sucks... well, it sucks anyhow Is the Cortex A8 dual core? Or it just handles 2 instructions at the same time (2 pipelines)? Is it a better CPU than the ones currently used in Touch PRO, Xperia, Diamond or even Diamond 2? Or it's about the same and that's just marketing BS.
Cortex A8 don't have support for multi-cores. But it has 2 pipelines and many other architeture improvements. If you are not reading it already, take a look at Anandtech's article over it, with architecture analysis, benchmarks and all: http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/sho...spx?i=3595&p=2
Can't wait for dual core mobile phones! 
Mobile crunchers anyone?! 
Most PDAs need to be recharged every day or two if used
Is the Cortex A8 dual core? Or it just handles 2 instructions at the same time (2 pipelines)? Is it a better CPU than the ones currently used in Touch PRO, Xperia, Diamond or even Diamond 2? Or it's about the same and that's just marketing BS.
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