Intel SoFIA & Broxton Killed

[witeken]

I am literally baffled by this statement.

Meh, never can resist when I can talk about Apple and money in one sentence.

 

[witeken]

Until the next round of layoffs, that is.

So far that's once every year (2016, 2015, 2014 >1000 people), although Intel doesn't consider the 5k from 2015 a layoff:

I'd like to clarify that we are not announcing a layoff. Business groups are developing plans to reduce spending and this will include some reduction in headcount. In addition, we are realigning and refocusing our resources to meet the needs of the business. When we talk about reduction of the workforce there are a number of things that can happen. It could include redeployments, voluntary programs, retirements, and through attrition. All are options so it would be wrong to conclude this is a layoff. Our usual rate of attrition is close to 4 percent worldwide.

 

[zentan]

SoFIA was dead from the beginning because of the super low specifications of this SoC. No Broxton for phones is a major decision, I'm not sure if it is true that Broxton won't come for tablets either.

This Roadmap is obsolete then: https://i0.wp.com/benchlife.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kaby-lake.jpg?w=1920&ssl=1

Maybe their PC core segment gets higher priority now, this is what I hope.

Yeah, SoFIA was pointless. It's like they could not see the surge in Chinese and Asian market or made a very bad estimation of these market apart form their delays. So many better quality modems/SoCs even at the extreme low end ones are/were present in those market.

 

[nvgpu]

If Broxton tablet SoC is cancelled, does that mean Surface 4 is dead too?

 

[dark zero]

Lisa Su wouldn't be any better.

If I were them, I would poach somebody from TSMC, probably try to grab one of the two Co-CEOs -- C.C. Wei or Mark Liu.

TSMC = hiatus. So no. Maybe Apple or IBM one?

Also... Killing Broxton is a even worse desicion than making SOFIA.... Was the only succesful chip from Intel mobile... Sadly it had the worst OS on it...

 

[Exophase]

Lisa Su wouldn't be any better.

If I were them, I would poach somebody from TSMC, probably try to grab one of the two Co-CEOs -- C.C. Wei or Mark Liu.

I wonder if Intel's corporate culture will allow this, with all of their CEOs coming from within so far.

 

[DrMrLordX]

With that 12k layoff, I am not surprised by SoFIA going in the can. But Broxton? Ouch.

 

[cbn]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrick...the-right-one-for-the-company/2/#6a223b1c1f52

Hopefully there is some other mobile x86 alternative then. Maybe Rockchip x86? Rockchip x86 with an Intel iGPU?

I am looking forward to the day when we are able to update our phone OS in the same way we are able to update a PC OS. (ie, OS and hardware decoupled from each other allowing mix and match)

 

[Arachnotronic]

Hopefully there is some other mobile x86 alternative then. Maybe Rockchip x86? Rockchip x86 with an Intel iGPU?

I am looking forward to the day when we are able to update our phone OS in the same way we are able to update a PC OS. (ie, OS and hardware decoupled from each other allowing mix and match)

This has nothing to do with X86 or ARM.

Anyway, X86 in phones is done. The ARM ISA has won out here.

 

[cbn]

This has nothing to do with X86 or ARM.

ARM is yet to be a standardized platform like x86. (ie, ARM doesn't have the ability to mix and match OSes. Each OS build for ARM is specific to the device)

 

[dark zero]

Hopefully there is some other mobile x86 alternative then. Maybe Rockchip x86? Rockchip x86 with an Intel iGPU?

I am looking forward to the day when we are able to update our phone OS in the same way we are able to update a PC OS. (ie, OS and hardware decoupled from each other allowing mix and match)

Nope.... X86 on mobile is deader than dead now. No one will use them... Android on X86 will end into an illusion.

AMD has not plans to enter on that market and VIA has ARM and is with ZhaoXin.

 

[cbn]

Nope.... X86 on mobile is deader than dead now. No one will use them... Android on X86 will end into an illusion.

I was hoping for the day I could have a converged ubuntu phone/desktop.

Maybe this can still happen with Core as the CPU though? (Assuming there is no continued Rockchip-Intel alliance with atom)

 

[Exophase]

I was hoping for the day I could have a converged ubuntu phone/desktop.

You mean like this?

https://www.starryhope.com/ubuntu-touch-convergence-desktop/

You don't need x86 for this to happen.

 

[cbn]

You mean like this?

https://www.starryhope.com/ubuntu-touch-convergence-desktop/

You don't need x86 for this to happen.

Yes, Convergence.....but with an ISA that is standardized platform.

This so I don't need a specific ARM phone that Cannonical has built the OS for.

 

[Exophase]

Yes, Convergence.....but with an ISA that is standardized platform.

This so I don't need a specific ARM phone that Cannonical has built the OS for.

ISA has nothing to do with this.

If you get a random x86 phone you'll have no better odds of being able to put Convergence on it than a random ARM phone. They're not built like PCs.

 

[cbn]

ISA has nothing to do with this.

If you get a random x86 phone you'll have no better odds of being able to put Convergence on it than a random ARM phone. They're not built like PCs.

If there is a way to make a phone with OS compatibility like a PC, I would put my trust in x86 over ARM for some of the reasons mentioned below:

http://arstechnica.com/information-...orm-as-it-sets-its-sights-on-the-server-room/

Even as ARM processors have proliferated in smartphones and tablets and are starting to make their first tentative steps into the server room, ARM has not been a platform in the way that the x86 PC is a platform.

Way back in the early 1980s, the IBM PC defined the way the computer booted, initialized its hardware, laid out its memory, and provided access to standard features like graphics and the keyboard. This enabled an ecosystem of PC software to develop. The PC platform was cloned by Compaq and others, and these clones were functionally equivalent to IBM machines. Operating system software that worked on one clone would work on any other, and it would work on the PC itself.

Over the years, the PC platform has changed, but this compatibility has remained as a core feature.

To the chagrin of operating system developers, ARM has lacked a comparable platform. Linux creator Linus Torvalds once described the proliferation of inconsistent, incompatible ARM systems as a "fucking pain in the ass," and implored the ARM community to "push back on the people sending you crap" and devise a common platform. Intel, likewise, has used this diversity to criticize ARM.

Since that statement in 2012 there has been some progress. Microsoft essentially defined an ARM tablet platform for Windows RT, enabling its kernel to work on both Qualcomm Snapdragon and Nvidia Tegra 2 and Tegra 3-based systems. Linux developers have also managed to consolidate their support for some of the diverse ARM platforms.

 

[Exophase]

If there is a way to make a phone with OS compatibility like a PC, I would put my trust in x86 over ARM for some of the reasons mentioned below:

http://arstechnica.com/information-...orm-as-it-sets-its-sights-on-the-server-room/

UEFI supports ARM now, in the future someone could make a UEFI phone with an ARM SoC. They probably won't for the same reasons it probably won't happen with an x86 phone.

 

[cbn]

UEFI supports ARM now, in the future someone could make a UEFI phone with an ARM SoC. They probably won't for the same reasons it probably won't happen with an x86 phone.

According to the following link Windows Phone supports UEFI:

https://sysdev.microsoft.com/en-us/Hardware/oem/docs/Phone_Bring-Up/Boot_and_UEFI

Boot and UEFI
Phone bring-up

July 10, 2015

Applies to: Windows Phone hardware development

Windows Phones have several requirements for booting into the OS. After the phone’s firmware initializes all the hardware, the phone needs to ensure that there is enough power to boot. Afterwards, the phone needs to ensure that the phone is booting into the appropriate OS depending on if the user wants to perform an update or a restore on the phone, or if the user wants to boot the phone into the main OS. In addition, OEMs have scenarios of being able to flash images on the phone and perform custom automated tests on the phone.

To accommodate each of these scenarios, the Windows Phone boot process uses the following components:

Firmware boot loaders provided by the SoC vendor.

UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) environment provided by the SoC vendor.

Windows Phone Boot Manager provided by Microsoft.

This topic provides an overview of the boot process, and it describes the SoC firmware boot loaders, UEFI, and Windows Phone Boot Manager in more detail.
Overview of the boot process for Windows Phones

When a Windows Phone is turned on, it goes through the following high-level process:

The phone is powered on and runs the SoC-specific firmware boot loaders, which initialize the hardware on the phone and provide emergency flashing functionality.

The firmware boot loaders boot the UEFI environment and hands over control to UEFI applications written by the SoC vendor, Microsoft, and OEMs. These applications can utilize UEFI drivers and services.

The UEFI environment launches the Windows Phone Boot Manager, which determines whether to boot to FFU flashing or phone reset mode, to the update OS, or to the main OS.

The following diagram illustrates this process at a high level.

Following are additional details about some of the components in this diagram:

The update OS is a minimal OS environment provided by Microsoft. This OS is used specifically for installing phone updates. For more information, see Update.

FFU flashing mode refers to a UEFI application that flashes an OS image to phone storage. Microsoft provides a UEFI flashing application, ffuloader.efi, which can be used in non-manufacturing scenarios. OEMs can also implement their own UEFI flashing application. For more information, see Use the flashing tools provided by Microsoft and Flashing tools.

SoC firmware boot loaders

The SoC firmware boot loaders initialize the minimal set of hardware on the phone required for the phone to run. The SoC firmware boot loaders are designed to finish as fast as possible, and nothing is drawn to the screen while they are running. After the SoC firmware boot loaders finish, the phone is booted into the UEFI environment.

The SoC firmware boot loaders also contain an emergency flashing capability that allows phones to be flashed when the boot environment is not stable and FFU-based flashing using the Microsoft-provided flashing tool is not possible. Emergency flashing requires tools specific to the SoC. For more information, contact the SoC vendor.
UEFI

Windows Phone utilizes the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) to support the handoff of system control from the SoC firmware boot loader to the Windows Phone OS. The UEFI environment is a minimal boot OS upon which Windows Phones are booted and the OS runs. For more information, see UEFI in Windows Phone.
Understanding the Windows Phone Boot Manager

The Windows Phone Boot Manager is a Microsoft-provided UEFI application that sets up the boot environment. Inside the boot environment, individual boot applications started by the Boot Manager provide functionality for all customer-facing scenarios before the phone boots.
Important note Important note

All components inside the boot environment are provided by Microsoft and cannot be modified, replaced, or omitted by OEMs.

Boot applications implement functionality for the following scenarios:

Charging the phone battery before boot.

Capturing and saving offline crash dumps (developer builds only).

Flashing the phone with a new image.

Resetting the phone.

Updating the phone.

Booting the phone to the main OS.

The following diagram illustrates some of the key portions of the process that the Boot Manager follows after it is launched by the UEFI environment.

The following steps describe this process in more detail:

After the UEFI environment launches the Boot Manager, the Boot Manager initializes boot libraries, reads the boot configuration database to determine which boot applications to run and in which order to run them. The Boot Manager launches boot applications sequentially, and each application exits back to the Boot Manager after finishing.

Boot libraries are libraries of functions that extend upon existing UEFI functionality, and are designed to be used within the boot environment. Only boot applications, which are launched by the Boot Manager, have access to the boot libraries.

The Boot Manager first captures any reserved hardware button combinations that are pressed by the user. For more information about the reserved hardware button combinations, see Phone-specific UEFI requirements.

In non-retail OS images, the Boot Manager next runs an offline crash dump boot application, wpdmp.efi, which allows the phone to capture a snapshot of physical memory from the previous OS session. When the phone resets abnormally on development phones, the previous OS session’s memory is preserved across the reset. When this happens, the offline crash dump application will save that memory and turn it into an offline crash dump file, which can be transferred off the phone and analyzed. If the phone did not reset abnormally in the previous OS session, the offline crash dump application exits immediately.

In all OS images, the Boot Manager next runs mobilestartup.efi. This application runs several boot libraries, some of which are only run on first boot (for example, to provision the secure boot policy) or only in non-retail images (for example, to enter USB mass storage mode). The following libraries are always run:

First, mobilestartup.efi runs the library that implements UEFI battery charging. This library allows the user to charge their phone while the phone is in the boot environment (or is perceived as being turned off). This library is run first to ensure that the device has enough power to fully boot. For more information about scenarios involving the battery charging application, see Battery charging in the boot environment.

Next, mobilestartup.efi runs the libraries that implement flashing, phone reset, and phone updates. These libraries determine whether if the phone should boot to flashing or phone reset mode, or if the phone should continue to the Update OS or Main OS.

If mobilestartup.efi does not boot to flashing or phone reset mode, the Boot Manager boots into the Main OS or the Update OS.

 

[Exophase]

According to the following link Windows Phone supports UEFI:

https://sysdev.microsoft.com/en-us/Hardware/oem/docs/Phone_Bring-Up/Boot_and_UEFI

You really don't need to copy and paste entire lengthy articles in replies, it's enough to provide the link >_>

I didn't know Windows Phone uses UEFI, but it goes without saying that they're all locked down nonetheless.

They're also 100% running ARM SoCs.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Intel mobile has always smelled bad from the very beginning in 2008.

Way back actually:

"We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we'd done it," Otellini told me in a two-hour conversation during his last month at Intel. "The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do... At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn't see it. It wasn't one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought."

It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. "The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut," he said. "My gut told me to say yes."

Well, that didn't happen. The rest is history.

 

[krumme]

Otellini was a f.....g gangster that used his gut for thinking and a gun and a phone to drive business forward.

Who wonders why he missed that opportunity? Lol. You cant have the same competences in one person.

 

[cbn]

I didn't know Windows Phone uses UEFI, but it goes without saying that they're all locked down nonetheless.

They're also 100% running ARM SoCs.

Not sure about Windows phone, but I did some reading and found out that some phones come with unlocked boot loaders. That or the boot loader can be unlocked (though this voids the warranty).

So I believe the possibility does exist for an open hardware/open software phone (ie, doesn't need a device specific OS build)

 

[Exophase]

Otellini was a f.....g gangster that used his gut for thinking and a gun and a phone to drive business forward.

Who wonders why he missed that opportunity? Lol. You cant have the same competences in one person.

Hindsight is 20/20.. really easy to talk about what they should have done now but it doesn't make an awful lot of sense for something then.

To have had an SoC ready for Apple in time for the first iPhone they would have needed to execute a good order of magnitude faster than they did with Atom. It would have needed an incredible investment and even that wouldn't guarantee that they'd meet it. They didn't even have a low power process yet. Hence why they thought the volumes couldn't justify it.

Then Apple may have still ended up ditching them for in-house designs after a couple generations.

 

[monstercameron]

Intel's entire mobile business is a joke, and their continued attempts to dupe investors into thinking there is a material market for cellular connectivity outside of integrated APs for smartphones & slim modems is sad to watch.

I feel very bad for the people who are going to lose their jobs because of these product cancellations. They are not responsible for the consistently poor management decisions made here.

Why cant intel up margins by forcefully includinf -on die/package- cellular radios on their mobility products?

In other words why cant they use this for themselves and not only third parties.?

 

[cbn]

Why cant intel up margins by forcefully includinf -on die/package- cellular radios on their mobility products?

In other words why cant they use this for themselves and not only third parties.?

Broxton was supposed to have the ability to do this.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/di...Broxton_and_SoFIA_Application_Processors.html

Broxton: Revolutionary Universal Vehicle

The Broxton chip – for the first-time for Intel Atom-branded ultra-mobile solutions – will be built based on a special internal architecture that allows to quickly and easily reconfigure chips, create new designs and tailored solutions for particular applications. Generally, with Broxton, Intel will be able to address market opportunities significantly quicker than it does today.

Broxton will be based on next-generation Goldmont micro-architecture, will be made using 14nm process technology and will likely offer a number of unique capabilities that Intel does not want to talk about today. Given the fact that the Broxton design will allow integration of third-party IP into itself, it should largely rely on industry-standard technologies.

“Broxton is targeted towards the performance segment of the smartphones and tablets. Think of it as of the next-generation Atom. […] This is a core that has a complete new what we call “chassis” or, basically, connectivity that allows us to do iterations and derivatives of this [Broxton] core at a very fast clip. Think of it as of a core with a common chassis that allows connection of both external and external IP at a very fast rate, a kind of rate you see with our competitor’s products,” said Brian Krzanich, chief executive officer of Intel, at the meeting with investors.

In many ways Intel’s Broxton approach – which allows integration of third-party IP – resembles AMD’s “ambidextrous” strategy aimed primarily at semi-custom accelerated processing units. Intel yet has to reveal the details about Broxton, but it looks like the company is getting a tad more liberal regarding designs of its chips.