ARM processor looking to expand markets

[cbn]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3905/...-headed-for-smartphones-notebooks-and-servers

Notes:

1-4 cores
superscalar, out of order
Hardware virtualization
private L1 caches but a shared L2 cache (similar to the A9).
low latency l2 cache up to 4MB in size
improved FPU performance
1 - 1.5GHz single or dual-core for smartphones and mobile devices
1 - 2GHz dual or quad-core for netbooks/notebooks/nettops
1.5 - 2.5GHz quad-core for home and web servers

 

[faxon]

figured it was only a matter of time. with intel and amd both gaming heavy for the ultra low power/mobile market starting late this year, ARM simply wants to defend the market they have created for themselves. with the way home networking is going there is a huge growing market for devices which want to be able to do lots of small tasks without slowdown. the server market takes an interest in this because a lot of servers dont use much any CPU, just lots and lots of ram, so its really easy to make a cheap virtualization platform on which you can run hundreds of servers without spending much money on power or hardware

 

[Acanthus]

More competition is good.

Especially against Intels "locked down" Atom platform.

I would laugh extremely hard if they shutting out Ion turns out to be a horrible move. ARM + Ion competing against Atom + Intel chipset.

 

[nyker96]

More competition is good.

Especially against Intels "locked down" Atom platform.

I would laugh extremely hard if they shutting out Ion turns out to be a horrible move. ARM + Ion competing against Atom + Intel chipset.

don't forget AMD is also entering this market with a BD based ultra low power core next year. Anand had a review of it, forgot its code name, looks pretty decent as I recall. Looks good next few year for ultra portable form factors.

 

[cbn]

Just wondering,

How costly would the hardware inside an ARM A15 netbook be compared to an ARM A15 smartphone?

Doesn't the smart phone need a lot more parts than a WIFI netbook?

 

[Kivada]

Bring on the Quads! Could really go for one for Linux and Haiku, especially if they will take AMD GPUs. Doubt Android will be big with this, since while you can run it on this, you likely wont have access to the appstore, ever.

No, keep Windows out of it, theres no way for MS to get a foothold here, WM7 fell flat on it's face, and regular ass windows suffers from the fact that 99.9999% of the software will never be recompiled for ARM.

Linux and Haiku, being OSS and having almost all their software OSS means that it's trivial to make the vast majority of their software run on an ARM based system.

 

[Kivada]

Just wondering,

How costly would the hardware inside an ARM A15 netbook be compared to an ARM A15 smartphone?

Doesn't the smart phone need a lot more parts than a WIFI netbook?

Id's say yeah, smaller, often custom/proprietary parts, bunch of licensing crap bringing up the price artificially etc.

I'd take a look at the Open Pandora, Nintendo DS sized UMPC with game controls, keyboard and touch screen, currently going for $300, but I'd bet the price would go down if they had the backing to mass produce. As it is now its entirely a community based project with no corporate backing.

 

[cbn]

(snip).....regular ass windows suffers from the fact that 99.9999% of the software will never be recompiled for ARM.

But can't ARM netbooks use classic x86 software provided it is in the cloud? (I am thinking of the web based Microsoft Office 2010 as an example)

 

[cbn]

Id's say yeah, smaller, often custom/proprietary parts, bunch of licensing crap bringing up the price artificially etc.

If a Wifi ARM netbook can get by with less parts than a smartphone why does the PCB need to be proprietary? Wouldn't a standardized ARM mainboard into a standardized netbook chassis still allow for plenty of room for a battery and other parts without being so cramped for space?

I'd take a look at the Open Pandora, Nintendo DS sized UMPC with game controls, keyboard and touch screen, currently going for $300, but I'd bet the price would go down if they had the backing to mass produce. As it is now its entirely a community based project with no corporate backing.

That is pretty cool. (I wish I had the money and talent to do things like that).

 

[Kivada]

Yah, I was referring to the phones as having their prices artificially inflated.

But yeah, the OP can emulate the PSOne almost perfectly, N64 is doable if you can push the cpu from 600Mhz to around 850Mhz if not then you get audio sync issues. The Dreamcast is possible but the framerate is low. PSP should also be possible in theory, but there currently isn't an emulator. There is no Saturn support though, it's notoriously hard to emulate.

There are also some games being developed as well as pretty much every OSS title being ported, even the iD titles that they've dropped source for.

Had a chance to play with one, very nice, waiting for the orders to start for the 2nd batch.

 

[cbn]

There are also some games being developed as well as pretty much every OSS title being ported, even the iD titles that they've dropped source for.

Had a chance to play with one, very nice, waiting for the orders to start for the 2nd batch.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Barack-Obama-STEM-contest-Video-Game-Contest-president,news-8052.html

President Barack Obama yesterday announced a video game competition that he hopes will promote education and learning through game design. Dubbed the STEM Challenge, Obama said the contest is an effort to tap into students' passion for video games and use it to promote an interest in science, technology, engineering and math.

"Our success as a nation depends on strengthening America's role as the world’s engine of discovery and innovation," said President Obama.

"I applaud partners in the National STEM Video Game Challenge for lending their resources, expertise, and their enthusiasm to the task of strengthening America’s leadership in the 21st century by improving education in science, technology, engineering and math."

The competition is actually split up into two smaller divisions: the Youth Prize and the Developer Prize. The former will see students in fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade compete for a total of $50,000 in prizes (including computers and educational software as well as cash prizes for the sponsoring schools). Students' games can be either paper-based or produced on a platform that will allow the judges to play the game for free.

The Developer prize is a little bit bigger. Devs must design a mobile game aimed at young children (pre-K through to fourth grade). They are competing for a pool of $100,000 in seed money for the refinement, research, marketing and distribution of their game; the help of the Cooney Center research team in determining potential scalable outcomes of the game; advice from experts skilled in mobile gaming R&D; publicity; an invite to participate in the next Cooney Center Leadership Forum and other prizes.

Check out the STEM Challenge website for more details.

Perhaps there is a compelling reason to build a purely educational small form factor device?

 

[Kivada]

I don't see how a $300 UMPC w/ gaming controls is aimed at kids. It has the controls as one of the main selling points is portable emulation.

The cheaper competition might actually be better for kids, but they aren't anywhere near as versatile as the OP.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/GP2X_Caanoo
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dingoo
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Mi2_console
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/GP2X_Wiz

Either way, I'd like to see these kinds of devices in retail, we could use more interesting devices then the DS and the PSP.

Note that the OP was made in response to the Wiz not living up to expectations from previous Gamepark consoles, anticipation of the OP caused sales of the Wiz to flop ad thus forced the production of the Caanoo.

That said, I'd like to see GLSL, SDL, OpenAL etc. classes aimed at kids to get them into programming as that way they aren't being shoehorned into the "make it for windows and xbox and nothing else" hole.