Discussion ARM Cortex/Neoverse IP + SoCs (no custom cores) Discussion

[FlameTail]

Arm is also attending Microsoft Build (which officially begins tomorrow):

Windows on Arm App Development - Arm Developer Hub

Here you’ll find all the resources you need to help with developing your desktop program on Arm.

www.arm.com

Did they say anything significant there?

 

[uzzi38]

$300 for OEMs is pretty high.

That is extremely expensive, only way that pricing makes sense is if we're looking at something larger than a standard APU.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Samsung and Nvidia will be customers of Cortex X5.

May the vanilla X5 offer better value than whatever mutants those two cook up.

Mediatek FTW!

 

[gdansk]

May the vanilla X5 offer better value than whatever mutants those two cook up.

Mediatek FTW!

The tabloids say MediaTek is in bed with Jensen now. Look out Igor

 

[SarahKerrigan]

May the vanilla X5 offer better value than whatever mutants those two cook up.

Mediatek FTW!

They're all likely to use X5. Not any sort of "mutant."

 

[soresu]

They're all likely to use X5. Not any sort of "mutant."

The X series was initially advertised as a possible path to semi custom cores, so it's not impossible that some OEMs are doing this.

 

[SarahKerrigan]

The X series was initially advertised as a possible path to semi custom cores, so it's not impossible that some OEMs are doing this.

That's really not what the "Cortex-X Custom Program" meant - rather, it referred to OEM involvement in defining the cores. The "Custom" part was relative to Cortex-A.

I have seen absolutely zero indication of ARM allowing microarchitectural changes by licensees to flagship Cortex-X or Cortex-A designs.

 

[soresu]

rather, it referred to OEM involvement in defining the cores

Sooooo it was just an offer to allow OEMs to rebrand them?

Wasn't Qualcomm already doing that by calling them "Kryo" anyway?

 

[SarahKerrigan]

Sooooo it was just an offer to allow OEMs to rebrand them?

Wasn't Qualcomm already doing that by calling them "Kryo" anyway?

It was a little more than that, but certainly none of it involved "customers get RTL that they can mess with as they wish."

Basically it was a loud way of saying "we have some large smartphone customers and we are developing cores with heavy input from them on requirements", AFAIK. Not much different from Built on Cortex (which is what allowed Qualcomm to call ARM cores "Kryo" to the best of my knowledge.)

 

[igor_kavinski]

The tabloids say MediaTek is in bed with Jensen now.

For the GPU. Jensen will take their money and say "thank you sucker!" and Mediatek will come out poorer. The GPU won't be anything too great.

 

[soresu]

2024 IP announcements should be any day now going by last year.

 

[FlameTail]

Does ARM give a notice/pre-announcement before their actual IP announcements? Or does it happen out of the blue?

 

[coercitiv]

Does ARM give a notice/pre-announcement before their actual IP announcements? Or does it happen out of the blue?

An announcement of the announcement?

 

[FlameTail]

An announcement of the announcement?

Yes? Would that be unusual?

 

[poke01]

Well, X5 should deliver a >16% IPC uplift, if ARM's statements are true. can't wait

 

[FlameTail]

Well, X5 should deliver a >16% IPC uplift, if ARM's statements are true. can't wait

16% is mediocre.

It needs to be >30%.

It's totally possible.

X5 will be there first cleansheet design since Cortex A76, and the addition of SME alone (as per rumours) will bring a ~10% PPC increase in GB6.

 

[igor_kavinski]

16% is mediocre.

British engineers drink tea. Not coffee. Improvements will be mild.

 

[Nothingness]

British engineers drink tea. Not coffee. Improvements will be mild.

Arm designs only small cores in UK. Larger cores are left to France and USA.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Larger cores are left to France and USA.

Now that's gonna add a certain flavor to my thoughts when I'm thinking about ARM performance cores.

c'est la vie

sacré bleu

je ne sais quoi

 

[FlameTail]

Arm designs only small cores in UK.

THAT EXPLAINS IT.

They put out a new core only once every 2 years, and that too with mediocre improvements!

 

[FlameTail]

UK

 Cambridge

France

Sophia-Antipolis

USA.

Austin

Arm Bangalore Office

An amazing office in the largest tech hub of the nation's historical capital - this is Arm Bangalore.

careers.arm.com

ARM also has an office in Bangalore, India. What do they design there?

 

[Tup3x]

16% is mediocre.

It needs to be >30%.

It's totally possible.

X5 will be there first cleansheet design since Cortex A76, and the addition of SME alone (as per rumours) will bring a ~10% PPC increase in GB6.

Mmm... Assuming zero increase in clock speed. However, if X5 clocks higher then mediocre IPC increase would be fine

 

[igor_kavinski]

ARM also has an office in Bangalore, India. What do they design there?

Probably just testing.

 

[soresu]

Austin

I think there's another one in the US too, or at least there was for A65 development.

 

[hemedans]

THAT EXPLAINS IT.

They put out a new core only once every 2 years, and that too with mediocre improvements!

Cortex A53 - 2012
Cortex A55 - 2017
Cortex A510 - 2021
Cortex A520 - 2023

Most of time it's more than 2 years.

I haven't seen deep review of A520 but it looks good, sd 8 gen 3 crush almost all midrange in terms of battery life.