viatech ever going 32/28nm ?

[Soulkeeper]

It's been awhile since we've seen any via news ...
Any chance they'll release an updated x86 product again ?

No roadmaps ?
Were they using TSMC for their nano chips ?

Just trying to see if anyone has read anything I havn't or has some speculation.

 

[Idontcare]

They are on 40nm now at TSMC. I imagine they have every intention of shrinking to 28nm some day, but it could be years before that happens.

 

[Soulkeeper]

their dual die quad is ripe with potential

if they made it a single die 28nm chip that could be amazing

 

[ShintaiDK]

They are on 40nm now at TSMC. I imagine they have every intention of shrinking to 28nm some day, but it could be years before they can afford it.

Corrected it for you

 

[lamedude]

Does Via still have a license? The old one expired last week.

 

[mrmt]

Does Via still have a license? The old one expired last week.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2367376,00.asp

(...)

Other provisions include a stipulation that Via's X86 license, that it previously signed with Intel, will be extended to 2018, five years beyond the current agreement. AMD, Nvidia, and Via will also be allowed to conduct mergers or other transactions without the risk of being sued by Intel.

 

[SocketF]

Does Via still have a license? The old one expired last week.

That's old news, they have a licence until 2018 due to some FTC rulings in 2010:

III B. gets more interesting, the FTC extended the Via license agreement with Intel for a total of 15 years, it now ends on April 7, 2018. Via now has clear sailing until the patents in question are expired, a huge win for the boys in Austin.

http://semiaccurate.com/2010/08/04/intel-settles-ftc-and-nvidia-win-big/

Edit: Too late

For the CPUs:
The latest news I heard about it was that one:

Currently, work is being done on the CN-R, a small quad-core processor designed for TSMC's 28nm process.
(...)
the CN-R is supposed to hit the market in the classic format with clock speeds between 1.2 and 2GHz around mid-2013. Which market that's going to be, Henry doesn't know yet: tablets seem likely, the netbook market is all but dead, but there's still a niche market for small desktop PCs and mini-servers as well as the embedded sector.

http://www.h-online.com/newsticker/...-About-Austin-powers-and-patents-1742927.html

I guess it will get stiff competition from Kabini ... but well maybe its AVX2 capability is good for some special tasks

 

[lagokc]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2367376,00.asp

(...)

Other provisions include a stipulation that Via's X86 license, that it previously signed with Intel, will be extended to 2018, five years beyond the current agreement. AMD, Nvidia, and Via will also be allowed to conduct mergers or other transactions without the risk of being sued by Intel.

Maybe nVidia will buy VIA and we'll have 3 x86 APU makers - one with a great CPU and terrible GPU, one with a passable CPU and passable GPU, and one with a terrible CPU and great GPU

 

[Idontcare]

Corrected it for you

LOL, so true. At Via's annual x86 chip volumes and revenue the ROI from shrinking 28nm has got to be pretty dismal too.

 

[mrmt]

For the CPUs:
The latest news I heard about it was that one:
http://www.h-online.com/newsticker/...-About-Austin-powers-and-patents-1742927.html

the CN-R is supposed to hit the market in the classic format with clock speeds between 1.2 and 2GHz around mid-2013. Which market that's going to be, Henry doesn't know yet: tablets seem likely, the netbook market is all but dead, but there's still a niche market for small desktop PCs and mini-servers as well as the embedded sector.

So VIA is going to market a 28nm processor just months behind AMD?

What a joke this company has become.

 

[Arachnotronic]

So VIA is going to market a 28nm processor just months behind AMD?

What a joke this company has become.

VIA has access to greater financial resources than AMD does, so it's not too surprising. AMD is also dicking around with GPUs and ARM SoCs...

Look at AMD and Via, glimpse into the future of the dozens of me-too ARM licensees.

 

[SocketF]

Look at AMD and Via, glimpse into the future of the dozens of me-too ARM licensees.

Why would everybody switch to ARM? Is x86 doomed??

 

[lagokc]

Why would everybody switch to ARM? Is x86 doomed??

x86 isn't doomed, but ARM core licenses and hired fabs somewhat levels the playing field for anyone interested in entering the ARM chip market. Anyone in the x86 market has to contend with the 600 pound gorilla.

 

[SocketF]

So VIA is going to market a 28nm processor just months behind AMD?
What a joke this company has become.

Yes, and the biggest joke is, that it is still based on technology from ~2006. It still used the P4-bus/FSB from the good old socket 775 times. The memory controller is on the chipset.

x86 isn't doomed, but ARM core licenses and hired fabs somewhat levels the playing field for anyone interested in entering the ARM chip market. Anyone in the x86 market has to contend with the 600 pound gorilla.

Ok, but if everybody is going there, then I guess the ARM market is growing? I guess nobody would invest in shrinking markets, especially if there are already several companies involved.
So if ARM is growing, then I guess that the 600 pound gorilla will loose some weight, too.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Ok, but if everybody is going there, then I guess the ARM market is growing? I guess nobody would invest in shrinking markets, especially if there are already several companies involved.
So if ARM is growing, then I guess that the 600 pound gorilla will loose some weight, too.

ARM segment shrinks.

 

[lagokc]

Yes, and the biggest joke is, that it is still based on technology from ~2006. It still used the P4-bus/FSB from the good old socket 775 times. The memory controller is on the chipset.


Ok, but if everybody is going there, then I guess the ARM market is growing? I guess nobody would invest in shrinking markets, especially if there are already several companies involved.
So if ARM is growing, then I guess that the 600 pound gorilla will loose some weight, too.

Well the phone/tablet market is growing and the PC market is shrinking. Most consumers don't really know or care whether their CPU has an ARM or x86 instruction set so long as it runs Angry Birds.

Intel is unlikely to lose their domant position in PC CPUs any time soon and they know that they need to enter the phone/tablet market to maintain sales. That's why they've been putting a lot of resources into developing their next generation Atom CPUs. Intel isn't stupid, expect them to use their resources to take as big a portion of the phone market as they can in the next few years.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Can someone clue me in to why anyone would want another VIA CPU? I dont mean to sound stupid, but every VIA CPU I've used (C3 and neamiah) have been absolute dogs in terms of performance. I understand their market was power savings, but at the performance i saw in them i can deal with an intel ULV or even an atom.

 

[SocketF]

Can someone clue me in to why anyone would want another VIA CPU? I dont mean to sound stupid, but every VIA CPU I've used (C3 and neamiah) have been absolute dogs in terms of performance. I understand their market was power savings, but at the performance i saw in them i can deal with an intel ULV or even an atom.

Haha, I guess nobody wants a new VIA cpu (at least not with Socket 775 technology), I had the impression that this is just an informative geek-thread ^^

 

[lagokc]

Can someone clue me in to why anyone would want another VIA CPU? I dont mean to sound stupid, but every VIA CPU I've used (C3 and neamiah) have been absolute dogs in terms of performance. I understand their market was power savings, but at the performance i saw in them i can deal with an intel ULV or even an atom.

I think a lot of them were going into industrial machines that were used in environments where fans wouldn't survive and performance didn't matter. Why they'd be chosen over an Atom these days I don't know.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

We tried them in our medical facility for the mobile carts nurses use for documentation and med administration and they were absolute crap and the power savings werent that great either so we dumped them in favor of lower voltage I-series intel chips. The last thing you want to have when providing medical care is even MORE delay in treatment.

 

[sm625]

Maybe nVidia will buy VIA and we'll have 3 x86 APU makers - one with a great CPU and terrible GPU, one with a passable CPU and passable GPU, and one with a terrible CPU and great GPU

So who is who in that scenario?

 

[lagokc]

So who is who in that scenario?

Fair enough, nVidia runs into the same memory bandwidth problems AMD does when integrating GPUs. I suppose I should have said:

Intel: great CPU, terrible GPU
AMD: passable CPU, passable GPU
nVidia: terrible CPU, passable GPU

 

[Exophase]

Can someone clue me in to why anyone would want another VIA CPU? I dont mean to sound stupid, but every VIA CPU I've used (C3 and neamiah) have been absolute dogs in terms of performance. I understand their market was power savings, but at the performance i saw in them i can deal with an intel ULV or even an atom.

They were basically doing the Atom thing before Intel was, although with even worse performance. Many of the old UMPCs used C3s. What ULVs were available were either not really low power enough, too expensive, or maybe too volume limited.. so they weren't always the obvious alternative. It was pretty easy for Intel to eat VIA's limited market with Atom.

Then VIA responded with Nano, which offered significantly better performance than Atom and probably similarly pricing but swung too high on power consumption to really make it into netbooks let alone anything smaller. Then Bobcat hit, which offered almost the same performance but using less and with much better integration - VIA had neither memory controller nor GPU on the same package (let alone die). They were also a node behind for a while. VIA offered quad cores first in this space but the power constraints combined with any real turbo capability make them pretty useless; their single threaded advantage is completely drowned out by the lower clock speed and their threaded advantage isn't that big of a deal vs 2C/4T Atoms.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I think the atom CPU is barely suitable for basic web browsing. I find it absolutely laughable that HP is trying to do a server based on them. The via is completely unusable for anything with a human interface as it is simply frustratingly slow.

 

[Exophase]

I said it in my post, but Nano can be a lot faster than Atom (at least clock for clock, not sure what the current clocks are like). You shouldn't judge every CPU they ever make based on experiences you've had with older ones. Not saying Nano really makes sense in any current market whatsoever, just saying this as a general principle..