RIM sees PlayBook OS as 10-year future for smartphones, tablets

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  • Reply 121 of 133
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    I am right in this case. It has nothing to do with being egotistical --- it has to do with you two trying to slam me for not understanding the business arrangement. But I was right all along.







    You don't even know what I am talking about. All the other licensees are "core" licensees --- which means that they take a "stock" cortex A8 core and add a couple of non-core stuff to it (like an GPU). What these other 80-90 licensees cannot do is to change a single gate on the cortex core itself.



    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/23/microsoft_arm/



    There are only 4 ARM "architecture" licensees --- Marvell, Infineon, Qualcomm and Microsoft. They design their own "compatible" cores. Marvell has the Sheeva core and Qualcomm has the Scorpion core. This is like AMD selling a x86 compatible CPU.



    Hummingbird has a stock A8 core vs. Qualcomm has a ARMv7 compatible core.



    So I guess by your estimation Apple via it's Intrinsity purchase for modifying of the ARM core for power management doesn't add or subtract any gates on the chip? Yeah right. Wrong again.



    And you still don't know how to read. The Reg didn't say there were only 4 licensee's, they gave 4 examples. And noted that 200 or so of ARMs customers don't like to change the cores, that means others of the remaining 400+ do like that option. The Reg is an entertaining & useful a low budget rumor/news reposter/editorial for frack's sake. Good for a lead, never take their info as the last word on anything or you are going to keep playing the part of the fool.



    And oh what a fool you can be exposed as when playing ping pong with nht.
  • Reply 122 of 133
    samabsamab Posts: 1,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    So I guess by your estimation Apple via it's Intrinsity purchase for modifying of the ARM core for power management doesn't add or subtract any gates on the chip? Yeah right. Wrong again.



    And you still don't know how to read. The Reg didn't say there were only 4 licensee's, they gave 4 examples. And noted that 200 or so of ARMs customers don't like to change the cores, that means others of the remaining 400+ do like that option. The Reg is an entertaining & useful a low budget rumor/news reposter/editorial for frack's sake. Good for a lead, never take their info as the last word on anything or you are going to keep playing the part of the fool.



    And oh what a fool you can be exposed as when playing ping pong with nht.



    The only publicly known ARM architecture licensees are Marvell, Infineon, Qualcomm and Microsoft. There may be a fifth one that has not been publicly announced. But you were talking about hundreds and hundreds of architecture licensees --- which meant that you don't know what you were talking about.



    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10741448



    Intrinsity does not have an architecture license --- therefore they didn't touch the core.



    Do you know what Apple was doing with the Hummingbird? Apple was basically taking things out. The iphone/ipad don't have an HDMI output, so they took it out (and save a nickel here). They will never make a flip phone, they took out the 2nd LCD output (and save a nickel there). That's basically it. I am not saying that Apple's team is stupid. I am saying that given the time constraint for launching the A4, that's all they could do.



    You can go and look at something like the RIM Playbook --- it has one LCD screen and one HDMI out. But the OMAP4 chip has 2 LCD screen output and one HDMI out. TI designed the chip so that in the event a phone manufacturer wants to make a smartphone with a flip phone form factor, they can use OMAP4. But RIM is basically wasting money on a CPU feature that they would never be able to use in the Playbook.



    The more you talk, the more people will find out that you know absolutely nothing about this topic.
  • Reply 123 of 133
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    The only publicly known ARM architecture licensees are Marvell, Infineon, Qualcomm and Microsoft. There may be a fifth one that has not been publicly announced. But you were talking about hundreds and hundreds of architecture licensees --- which meant that you don't know what you were talking about.



    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10741448



    Intrinsity does not have an architecture license --- therefore they didn't touch the core.



    Do you know what Apple was doing with the Hummingbird? Apple was basically taking things out. The iphone/ipad don't have an HDMI output, so they took it out (and save a nickel here). They will never make a flip phone, they took out the 2nd LCD output (and save a nickel there). That's basically it. I am not saying that Apple's team is stupid. I am saying that given the time constraint for launching the A4, that's all they could do.



    You can go and look at something like the RIM Playbook --- it has one LCD screen and one HDMI out. But the OMAP4 chip has 2 LCD screen output and one HDMI out. TI designed the chip so that in the event a phone manufacturer wants to make a smartphone with a flip phone form factor, they can use OMAP4. But RIM is basically wasting money on a CPU feature that they would never be able to use in the Playbook.



    The more you talk, the more people will find out that you know absolutely nothing about this topic.



    Attempted boomerang attack!



    You do not know who has ARM licenses and nht directly contradicted you with the excerpts of the ARM conference call.



    You now have two references that speak to public announcements of architecture licensees. But nht has delivered a ARM CEO announcement of a non-public licensee. There are also others doing defense work, and they aren't on your public list either. You can't keep citing second and third party reports of public announcements and impeach first party transcripts that include explicit announcements of partners that will remain unnamed.



    I have no idea why you bring up the RIM Playbook as evidence for anything. RIM bought an off the shelf part. Big deal. Apple designs custom ASICS and has since the AppleII days. Apple has brought in significant ARM specific and CPU power management talent over the past two years. If we believe your premise that Apple could not possibly have an ARM architecture licensee, we would have to believe that Apple has no intention of doing any ARM CPU related design, because legally they could not, and more so wouldn't have the IP to even work with. Apple would be amongst the stupidest acquisition houses out there, buying 2 companies worth of talent for a niche they can't play in. I have a bit more faith in Steve and basic logic than that. Not to mention you keep pulling up tired and already contradicted sources.
  • Reply 124 of 133
    samabsamab Posts: 1,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    Attempted boomerang attack!



    You do not know who has ARM licenses and nht directly contradicted you with the excerpts of the ARM conference call.



    You now have two references that speak to public announcements of architecture licensees. But nht has delivered a ARM CEO announcement of a non-public licensee. There are also others doing defense work, and they aren't on your public list either. You can't keep citing second and third party reports of public announcements and impeach first party transcripts that include explicit announcements of partners that will remain unnamed.



    I have no idea why you bring up the RIM Playbook as evidence for anything. RIM bought an off the shelf part. Big deal. Apple designs custom ASICS and has since the AppleII days. Apple has brought in significant ARM specific and CPU power management talent over the past two years. If we believe your premise that Apple could not possibly have an ARM architecture licensee, we would have to believe that Apple has no intention of doing any ARM CPU related design, because legally they could not, and more so wouldn't have the IP to even work with. Apple would be amongst the stupidest acquisition houses out there, buying 2 companies worth of talent for a niche they can't play in. I have a bit more faith in Steve and basic logic than that. Not to mention you keep pulling up tired and already contradicted sources.



    So you are arguing I got it wrong because there is an unidentified fifth architecture licensee, when you were claiming that there were hundreds of architecture licensees.



    And nht is wrong anyway, because when they teardown the ipad, they also x-rayed the chip --- which has a stock A8 core inside.



    I never said that the PA Semi guys are stupid, I said that given the time constraints they can't take a architecture license, design a compatible core/chip and have it out in a product in a couple of years.



    Apple could very well be the fifth licensee, but so what? Do you know how long it took Qualcomm to design their own compatible core? When AIM (Apple, IBM and Motorola) fell apart, Qualcomm hired the entire embedded PowerPC chip team from IBM, gave them something like $300-400 million, and it took them 4 years to design the Scorpion core and the Snapdragon chip. And the IBM chip designers ain't stupid.
  • Reply 125 of 133
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    So you are arguing I got it wrong because there is an unidentified fifth architecture licensee, when you were claiming that there were hundreds of architecture licensees.



    Again with the inability to read actual content. I quote myself:



    Quote:

    And noted that 200 or so of ARMs customers don't like to change the cores, that means others of the remaining 400+ do like that option.



    See that little boldface part, it's the important part of the sentence you are ignoring. It says I don't know how many there are, but I know of at least one [and personally belive n is greater than 2]. Its mere existence shows you are not to be trusted because you are making things up again. Overreaching and fallacious restating of others points is a fatal indication of a losing argument.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    And nht is wrong anyway, because when they teardown the ipad, they also x-rayed the chip --- which has a stock A8 core inside.



    No, it is not a stock A8, there is feature size reduction layout difference from the ARM 65nm reference design to the production 45nm part. Is it the same core as in a Hummingbird, looks like it. Is it an off the shelf totally unmodified ARM CortexA8, no.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    So you are arguing I got it wrong because there is an unidentified fifth architecture licensee, when you were claiming that there were hundreds of architecture licensees.



    Again with the inability to read actual content. I quote myself:



    [IMG]And noted that 200 or so of ARMs customers don't like to change the cores, that means others of the remaining 400+ do like that option.[/IMG]



    See that little boldface part, it's the important part of the sentence you are ignoring. It says I don't know how many there are, but I know of at least one [and personally belive n is greater than 2]. Its mere existence shows you are not to be trusted because you are making things up again. Overreaching and fallacious restating of others points is a fatal indication of a losing argument.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    I never said that the PA Semi guys are stupid, I said that given the time constraints they can't take a architecture license, design a compatible core/chip and have it out in a product in a couple of years.



    Apple could very well be the fifth licensee, but so what? Do you know how long it took Qualcomm to design their own compatible core? When AIM (Apple, IBM and Motorola) fell apart, Qualcomm hired the entire embedded PowerPC chip team from IBM, gave them something like $300-400 million, and it took them 4 years to design the Scorpion core and the Snapdragon chip. And the IBM chip designers ain't stupid.



    You keep talking about designing a new core, but that's not what most speculate Apple is trying to do, and definitely what I think they are trying to do. (Its not like they are designing totally custom weapon system CPU/SoC packages) They are in the game to modify the existing core designs for max power efficiency. A far tighter scope than designing a "new core" from architectural building blocks and exactly the kind of talent PASemi brought to the table. To do that you still need access to the full architecture so you can decide what splits where and how to test it when you make your decisions. This process has probably been going on since early 2008, and a 2009 audition by Intrinsity worked so good Apple felt compelled to gobble them up for total advantage and not having to share. A potential 2011 release would be nearly three years of work, and while it may only ship conservative (but impressive) first steps in Core power management those would be steps not possible for anyone else in the mobile space. I wouldn't expect radical game-changing Core power dissipation until some follow-on to the A9 series where Apple has been able to work with ARM from first inception of the Architectural revision. They will be able to make a lot of hay with the other parts of the SOC this time around though.



    No IBM chip designers aren't stupid. But they are pig-headed. Power dissipation per unit of work has been abysmal in the Power series, IBM's premier line. They refused to make design tradeoffs that would allow Apple to field competitive laptops, and got very bunker mentality-ish over anything that didn't fit their Power Server line architecture. With the exception of funding a dedicated engineering effort like Microsoft did. So Apple walked and went Intel.



    In the meantime IBM had a come to Jesus moment because their Power Servers aren selling enough to fund the PowerPC line on it's own. So now they do way overpriced supercomputers because there are no price controls or competitive forces in that arena and contract work. The contract work engineers are very receptive because they have to be, but it has taken each team of them several years to learn their craft all over again. So comparing results from a set of engineers successfully navigating through an identity crisis to a set of engineers with currently relevant goals and thought processes from the start doesn't work so well.
  • Reply 126 of 133
    samabsamab Posts: 1,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    Again with the inability to read actual content. I quote myself:



    See that little boldface part, it's the important part of the sentence you are ignoring. It says I don't know how many there are, but I know of at least one [and personally belive n is greater than 2]. Its mere existence shows you are not to be trusted because you are making things up again. Overreaching and fallacious restating of others points is a fatal indication of a losing argument.



    No, it is not a stock A8, there is feature size reduction layout difference from the ARM 65nm reference design to the production 45nm part. Is it the same core as in a Hummingbird, looks like it. Is it an off the shelf totally unmodified ARM CortexA8, no.



    Again with the inability to read actual content. I quote myself:



    [IMG]And noted that 200 or so of ARMs customers don't like to change the cores, that means others of the remaining 400+ do like that option.[/IMG]



    See that little boldface part, it's the important part of the sentence you are ignoring. It says I don't know how many there are, but I know of at least one [and personally belive n is greater than 2]. Its mere existence shows you are not to be trusted because you are making things up again. Overreaching and fallacious restating of others points is a fatal indication of a losing argument.







    You keep talking about designing a new core, but that's not what most speculate Apple is trying to do, and definitely what I think they are trying to do. (Its not like they are designing totally custom weapon system CPU/SoC packages) They are in the game to modify the existing core designs for max power efficiency. A far tighter scope than designing a "new core" from architectural building blocks and exactly the kind of talent PASemi brought to the table. To do that you still need access to the full architecture so you can decide what splits where and how to test it when you make your decisions. This process has probably been going on since early 2008, and a 2009 audition by Intrinsity worked so good Apple felt compelled to gobble them up for total advantage and not having to share. A potential 2011 release would be nearly three years of work, and while it may only ship conservative (but impressive) first steps in Core power management those would be steps not possible for anyone else in the mobile space. I wouldn't expect radical game-changing Core power dissipation until some follow-on to the A9 series where Apple has been able to work with ARM from first inception of the Architectural revision. They will be able to make a lot of hay with the other parts of the SOC this time around though.



    No IBM chip designers aren't stupid. But they are pig-headed. Power dissipation per unit of work has been abysmal in the Power series, IBM's premier line. They refused to make design tradeoffs that would allow Apple to field competitive laptops, and got very bunker mentality-ish over anything that didn't fit their Power Server line architecture. With the exception of funding a dedicated engineering effort like Microsoft did. So Apple walked and went Intel.



    In the meantime IBM had a come to Jesus moment because their Power Servers aren selling enough to fund the PowerPC line on it's own. So now they do way overpriced supercomputers because there are no price controls or competitive forces in that arena and contract work. The contract work engineers are very receptive because they have to be, but it has taken each team of them several years to learn their craft all over again. So comparing results from a set of engineers successfully navigating through an identity crisis to a set of engineers with currently relevant goals and thought processes from the start doesn't work so well.



    Let me quote the beginning:



    I said "I know that only 4 companies to-date has signed ARM architecture license --- Qualcomm, Infineon, Marvell and Microsoft. They can design their own cores."



    You said "You are showing yourself to be an absolute talk out your ass sideways idiot. Apple is an ARM licensor, as is TI- what do you think the OMAP series are? And Samsung is a licensor too--Hummingbird isn't made or designed by ARM, the CortexA8 core was licensed by Samsung so they could make the Hummingbird. There are also a handful of DoD and European defense contractors that contract for ARM IP directly too."



    You have zero understanding from the beginning and yet you have been belittling me for days. I have been quite tolerant with you for awhile now.



    You don't buy an architecture license and not build your own compatible core. You don't go and buy 2 silicon firms with hundreds of silicon engineers just to tinker a few gates here and there. It cost a lot of money to get the architecture license up front and then you have to spend a lot of time and money to develop your own compatible core. Why do Qualcomm and Marvell and Infineon do it? Because you don't have to pay the "relatively" expensive cortex a8 license fee for every chip you make. Apple would be paying twice if they buy the architecture license and then tinker with a few cortex gates --- because they would still have to pay the per unit cortex license fee.



    PA Semi designed 64 bit chips on the Power/PowerPC architecture before Apple bought them, so there was no running start.



    The IBM team that designed the G5 belonged to the DESKTOP powerpc chip group, not the EMBEDDED powerpc chip group (which Qualcomm hired).
  • Reply 127 of 133
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    Let me quote the beginning:



    I said "I know that only 4 companies to-date has signed ARM architecture license --- Qualcomm, Infineon, Marvell and Microsoft. They can design their own cores."



    You said "You are showing yourself to be an absolute talk out your ass sideways idiot. Apple is an ARM licensor, as is TI- what do you think the OMAP series are? And Samsung is a licensor too--Hummingbird isn't made or designed by ARM, the CortexA8 core was licensed by Samsung so they could make the Hummingbird. There are also a handful of DoD and European defense contractors that contract for ARM IP directly too."



    You have zero understanding from the beginning and yet you have been belittling me for days. I have been quite tolerant with you for awhile now.



    Given you kept changing the goalposts to suit your purposes I was correct in the rebuttal at that point in time. Your previous posts had been all over the map with exceptionally loose use of terminology. What are we supposed to be, psychic? Taking the revisionist history look at week old posts now that we have been debating a commonly-understood target makes it easy to snipe. Go back to where you were lax and say you meant something other that what it appeared you were referring to at that point. whoop-de-whorl, deal with the fact that in the current posts, debating an unambiguous topic, you are still failing and misstating facts.







    Quote:

    You don't buy an architecture license and not build your own compatible core.



    Well, Qualcomm has the Snapdragon, which despite it's early promise seems to be a less than market beating chip. I don't know enough about Marvell, but they seem to not be keeping everyone else out of the mobile space either. But at least these folks did build their own cores.





    Infineon wasn't designing their own cores, they were been grafting their stuff onto ARM cores, and now they are owned by Intel, so much for their meeting your criteria.



    You really think MS is going to build CPUs? They never have before, they are good at contracting that out when needed, and there's no way they could be ready for the XBox follow on to the 360 with a new chip from scratch, so your analysis seems to be missing something with them.



    So if you were being magnanimous and figuring MS and Infineon were eventually going to make ARM cores, I fail to see how you can discriminate Apple out of that same conversation when they have already shipped a custom ARM SOC. The power efficient core seems to be a reasonable outgrowth of that.



    Quote:

    You don't go and buy 2 silicon firms with hundreds of silicon engineers just to tinker a few gates here and there. It cost a lot of money to get the architecture license up front and then you have to spend a lot of time and money to develop your own compatible core. Why do Qualcomm and Marvell and Infineon do it? Because you don't have to pay the "relatively" expensive cortex a8 license fee for every chip you make. Apple would be paying twice if they buy the architecture license and then tinker with a few cortex gates --- because they would still have to pay the per unit cortex license fee.



    Your logic is abysmal here. I don't think anyone else on the planet thinks Apple is paying a full ARM architectural license to access the A8. That is undoubtedly A9 and on. You have to twist logic farther than a Klein bottle neck to get where you are.



    Quote:

    PA Semi designed 64 bit chips on the Power/PowerPC architecture before Apple bought them, so there was no running start.



    Duh. Nobody said there was a running start. I said they had almost three years from the acquisition to work on something like an A9 derivative. Is it possible for you to respond to a sentence without making you own completely fantastical interpretation?



    Quote:

    The IBM team that designed the G5 belonged to the DESKTOP powerpc chip group, not the EMBEDDED powerpc chip group (which Qualcomm hired).



    Company culture is company culture. And the embedded PowerPC group is just the group that gets to deal with the old designs and repurpose the already well amortized IP. They were all IBM PPC engineers in a culture that had the Power server line as it's pinnacle. All large organizations have cultures which are embedded, and it is the rare group that can survive bucking the trend. In retrospect with the milquetoast success Snapdragon has had to date, I might speculate that the whole hog dual core performance or bust decisions were borne of that culture and prevented a far more spectacular really low power chip with almost as good performance promise from emerging.
  • Reply 128 of 133
    samabsamab Posts: 1,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    Given you kept changing the goalposts to suit your purposes I was correct in the rebuttal at that point in time. Your previous posts had been all over the map with exceptionally loose use of terminology. What are we supposed to be, psychic? Taking the revisionist history look at week old posts now that we have been debating a commonly-understood target makes it easy to snipe. Go back to where you were lax and say you meant something other that what it appeared you were referring to at that point. whoop-de-whorl, deal with the fact that in the current posts, debating an unambiguous topic, you are still failing and misstating facts.



    There is no changing of goalposts --- I originally said that if Apple wants to have a dual cortex A9 core for the ipad 2 and launch in April next year, it looks like that Apple/Samsung may not be able to make that on time (and that they have to source it from TI like RIM). Then suddenly a few days after I said it, rumors arose that Samsung placed a large order for the nVidia Tegra 2 chip to be used in their own Galaxy Tab 2.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    Well, Qualcomm has the Snapdragon, which despite it's early promise seems to be a less than market beating chip. I don't know enough about Marvell, but they seem to not be keeping everyone else out of the mobile space either. But at least these folks did build their own cores.



    Considering that 70-80% of the Android phones use the Snapdragon --- they are the market beating chip.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    Infineon wasn't designing their own cores, they were been grafting their stuff onto ARM cores, and now they are owned by Intel, so much for their meeting your criteria.



    It's not that Infineon wasn't designing their own core --- it is that buying the architecture license is only step number 1. This is a company that barely dodged bankruptcy in 2009 and then had to sell their wireless business to Intel. Where the hell were they going to find $300-400 million dollars to develop their own core when they were facing bankrupty.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    You really think MS is going to build CPUs? They never have before, they are good at contracting that out when needed, and there's no way they could be ready for the XBox follow on to the 360 with a new chip from scratch, so your analysis seems to be missing something with them.



    Nobody said that Microsoft is going to build CPU's. But now with an architecture license, Microsoft can hire say IBM to design their own ARM core if they want --- just like what they did with Xenon, which Microsoft owns the IP. Who the hell knows what Microsoft is up to? But they have over $40 billion in cash and they have plenty of long term projects.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    So if you were being magnanimous and figuring MS and Infineon were eventually going to make ARM cores, I fail to see how you can discriminate Apple out of that same conversation when they have already shipped a custom ARM SOC. The power efficient core seems to be a reasonable outgrowth of that.



    As I stated earlier, Infineon just barely dodged bankruptcy and Microsoft has over $40 billion cash. Who knows what they would be doing?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    Your logic is abysmal here. I don't think anyone else on the planet thinks Apple is paying a full ARM architectural license to access the A8. That is undoubtedly A9 and on. You have to twist logic farther than a Klein bottle neck to get where you are.



    This is how much you know NOTHING about this topic. It doesn't matter that you already paid for your architectural license --- that's just the instruction set to make a compatible core. ARM created implementations of the ARMv7 instruction set in the cortex series of core --- if Apple uses that ARM's implementation (even a small portion of it), then Apple has to pay a per unit license fee for that implementation.



    Nobody pays twice when they can pay just once. If Apple is the fifth architecture licensee, then they will (1) in the short term, continue to make their own custom silicon with a stock cortex A9 chip and (2) in the long term, migrate to their own compatible core. There is no in-between option as you suggested because that would mean that they would have to continue to pay per unit cortex licensing fee.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    Duh. Nobody said there was a running start. I said they had almost three years from the acquisition to work on something like an A9 derivative. Is it possible for you to respond to a sentence without making you own completely fantastical interpretation?



    Anything is possible, but the question is --- is it probable that they can do it in time? We just heard about Samsung being late with their own Orion chip and have to buy the nVidia chip. Even with the nvidia chip, quantity becomes a real problem --- when you look at LG's announcement of their dual core a9 smartphone that will only have enough to basically launch in South Korea only.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    Company culture is company culture. And the embedded PowerPC group is just the group that gets to deal with the old designs and repurpose the already well amortized IP. They were all IBM PPC engineers in a culture that had the Power server line as it's pinnacle. All large organizations have cultures which are embedded, and it is the rare group that can survive bucking the trend. In retrospect with the milquetoast success Snapdragon has had to date, I might speculate that the whole hog dual core performance or bust decisions were borne of that culture and prevented a far more spectacular really low power chip with almost as good performance promise from emerging.



    What planet are you from? Milquetoast success? They just name Qualcomm/Android (the Quadroid) as the new Wintel.
  • Reply 129 of 133
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    There is no changing of goalposts --- I originally said that if Apple wants to have a dual cortex A9 core for the ipad 2 and launch in April next year, it looks like that Apple/Samsung may not be able to make that on time (and that they have to source it from TI like RIM). Then suddenly a few days after I said it, rumors arose that Samsung placed a large order for the nVidia Tegra 2 chip to be used in their own Galaxy Tab 2.







    Considering that 70-80% of the Android phones use the Snapdragon --- they are the market beating chip.







    It's not that Infineon wasn't designing their own core --- it is that buying the architecture license is only step number 1. This is a company that barely dodged bankruptcy in 2009 and then had to sell their wireless business to Intel. Where the hell were they going to find $300-400 million dollars to develop their own core when they were facing bankrupty.







    Nobody said that Microsoft is going to build CPU's. But now with an architecture license, Microsoft can hire say IBM to design their own ARM core if they want --- just like what they did with Xenon, which Microsoft owns the IP. Who the hell knows what Microsoft is up to? But they have over $40 billion in cash and they have plenty of long term projects.







    As I stated earlier, Infineon just barely dodged bankruptcy and Microsoft has over $40 billion cash. Who knows what they would be doing?







    This is how much you know NOTHING about this topic. It doesn't matter that you already paid for your architectural license --- that's just the instruction set to make a compatible core. ARM created implementations of the ARMv7 instruction set in the cortex series of core --- if Apple uses that ARM's implementation (even a small portion of it), then Apple has to pay a per unit license fee for that implementation.



    Nobody pays twice when they can pay just once. If Apple is the fifth architecture licensee, then they will (1) in the short term, continue to make their own custom silicon with a stock cortex A9 chip and (2) in the long term, migrate to their own compatible core. There is no in-between option as you suggested because that would mean that they would have to continue to pay per unit cortex licensing fee.







    Anything is possible, but the question is --- is it probable that they can do it in time? We just heard about Samsung being late with their own Orion chip and have to buy the nVidia chip. Even with the nvidia chip, quantity becomes a real problem --- when you look at LG's announcement of their dual core a9 smartphone that will only have enough to basically launch in South Korea only.







    What planet are you from? Milquetoast success? They just name Qualcomm/Android (the Quadroid) as the new Wintel.



    Wow, you really buy into the marketing hype. "Quadroid" A catchy term maybe, but not all that and a bag of chips.



    70-80% of Android phones using it? Well maybe not pulling numbers out your ass sideways, but definitely buying into a very restricted idea of what the market is. So much so that the rest of the analysis, including that done by a couple overzealous tech-wannabe-journalists is relatively worthless. This is why I cannot even begin to accept 1% of what you say and nobody else should either. You give up on one set of fake numbers and then move on to manufacturing the next like it's just another afternoon cookie break.



    When he marketing dies down, this is a single chip that is in no way a lockout of any other. x86 had a stranglehold until AMD won a lawsuit, ARM owns the ISA and licenses it to all comers on a no prejudice basis. Qualcomm is as likely to have a poor follow on chip as they are to have a good one. But in no way is any Qualcomm ARM chip locking out any other ARM chip supplier in any space. Buying into ARM means that whole road of CPU OEM business is going down the road of commodity pricing with very little ability for a market producer to do anything of any note to differentiate a chip. By not selling CPUs in the wide market a player can differentiate while still using the same ISA as long as they sell enough devices.
  • Reply 130 of 133
    samabsamab Posts: 1,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    Wow, you really buy into the marketing hype. "Quadroid" A catchy term maybe, but not all that and a bag of chips.



    70-80% of Android phones using it? Once again you are completely pulling numbers out your ass sideways. This is why I cannot even begin to accept 1% of what you say and nobody else should either. You give up on one set of fake numbers and then move on to manufacturing the next like it's just another afternoon cookie break.



    More than 3/4 of the android phone models use Qualcomm chips.



    http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/12/tech...roid/index.htm



    The funny thing is that it seems the only non-Qualcomm based Android phones --- are the Verizon ones.



    Note to all AI moderators, I have been very tolerant to Hiro's belittling so far. But I do have my limit and I am prepared to launch unlimited warfare to defend myself.
  • Reply 131 of 133
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    More than 3/4 of the android phone models use Qualcomm chips.



    http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/12/tech...roid/index.htm



    The funny thing is that it seems the only non-Qualcomm based Android phones --- are the Verizon ones.



    Note to all AI moderators, I have been very tolerant to Hiro's belittling so far. But I do have my limit and I am prepared to launch unlimited warfare to defend myself.



    You are quick to reply. Do you wait at the keyboard for my every post? You do have my original text, but you sat on it for awhile didn't you? Because I changed it about three minutes later, softening it a bit, I thought that was probably the right thing to do. My later edit for a typo still beat your small post to the board.



    Your only necessary defense is to stop with the misinformation, I am only responding to your continual posts of questionable truthiness. I do admit, not every nugget you post is made up, the Quadroid thing just appears to an attempt to be inflammatory in a different way. It worked for a few minutes, but you can see it wasn't quite as successful as you hoped.



    As for the rest of it, you do still need to learn to read what is written rather than what you want to read though. That little weakness of yours leads to lots of mis-charcterizing posts. Along with reading, I expect you could also be better served by doing a little analysis and basic sanity checking.



    Do you know the source of the 75-80% number.? Which was actually reported as 77% by the source? You might reconsider the veracity of the claim if you actually did a little 2+2 on who ships what, which carriers ship the most smartphones in total number (didn't I read really recently the name Verizon?) and that a business consultancy somehow has better numbers than any Street analyst? PRTM is trying to sell their own brand of Android services by a little opportunistic accounting.



    I don't think verification and subsequent doubt of a posted on the internet data-let constitutes heinous ad hom behavior. It's just good data hygiene.



    Notice that there are no other posters on the boards that have run to your defense stating my or nht exposing of your rampant inaccuracies. Not even any of the ever present sock puppets have appeared to have waded-in, and they would love nothing else other than seeing me get a virtual black eye.



    I do so chuckle at the continued attempts to say I don't have any idea of what I am posting about, what an OS is, an ISA, a contract. It's all very engaging but oh so smacks of trying to deflect examination of the substance or lack thereof. Apparently I can also create "in-between options" from thin air. The only thing I know that can do that is the event horizon of a black hole, so I guess your in-between options are just virtual fantasies of your own eyes, or at least a heaping portion of wishful imagination.



    To then think my (virtual) ideas show Apple would paying twice for something, and that would be the contradiction to break the chain is actually a nice shot at proof by contradiction. But to get there you have had to oversimplify both contracts and motivations. The oversimplifications place too great a weight on your argument an it collapses upon itself. The clear lightweight non-self-licking-lollipop is that Apple pays ARM for what Apple wants out of that particular contract. The fact Apple may have multiple business relationships with an old friend of a company doesn't mean they are paying multiple times for the same thing. They are paying ARM multiple times for different things on different timescales.



    You really underestimate the concept of long-thought, which probably means you aren't old enough to have been shafted by long-thought yet. [Exercise: what long thought might I be referencing? Whatever the answer is can only be a guess unless you work in Apple and dine with Steve, neither of which I do. So I am only "guessing too", but not all guesses are created equal so give it a shot.] Oh well, either you will develop the sight or you won't, not for anyone else to say. But keep on keeping on, keep your eyes open and learn to not be so believing of the first article you come across. I promise you I will continue to be a deep reader, not a surface skimmer.
  • Reply 132 of 133
    samabsamab Posts: 1,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    You are quick to reply. Do you wait at the keyboard for my every post? You do have my original text, but you sat on it for awhile didn't you? Because I changed it about three minutes later, softening it a bit, I thought that was probably the right thing to do. My later edit for a typo still beat your small post to the board.



    Your only necessary defense is to stop with the misinformation, I am only responding to your continual posts of questionable truthiness. I do admit, not every nugget you post is made up, the Quadroid thing just appears to an attempt to be inflammatory in a different way. It worked for a few minutes, but you can see it wasn't quite as successful as you hoped.



    As for the rest of it, you do still need to learn to read what is written rather than what you want to read though. That little weakness of yours leads to lots of mis-charcterizing posts. Along with reading, I expect you could also be better served by doing a little analysis and basic sanity checking.



    Do you know the source of the 75-80% number.? Which was actually reported as 77% by the source? You might reconsider the veracity of the claim if you actually did a little 2+2 on who ships what, which carriers ship the most smartphones in total number (didn't I read really recently the name Verizon?) and that a business consultancy somehow has better numbers than any Street analyst? PRTM is trying to sell their own brand of Android services by a little opportunistic accounting.



    I don't think verification and subsequent doubt of a posted on the internet data-let constitutes heinous ad hom behavior. It's just good data hygiene.



    Notice that there are no other posters on the boards that have run to your defense stating my or nht exposing of your rampant inaccuracies. Not even any of the ever present sock puppets have appeared to have waded-in, and they would love nothing else other than seeing me get a virtual black eye.



    I do so chuckle at the continued attempts to say I don't have any idea of what I am posting about, what an OS is, an ISA, a contract. It's all very engaging but oh so smacks of trying to deflect examination of the substance or lack thereof. Apparently I can also create "in-between options" from thin air. The only thing I know that can do that is the event horizon of a black hole, so I guess your in-between options are just virtual fantasies of your own eyes, or at least a heaping portion of wishful imagination.



    To then think my (virtual) ideas show Apple would paying twice for something, and that would be the contradiction to break the chain is actually a nice shot at proof by contradiction. But to get there you have had to oversimplify both contracts and motivations. The oversimplifications place too great a weight on your argument an it collapses upon itself. The clear lightweight non-self-licking-lollipop is that Apple pays ARM for what Apple wants out of that particular contract. The fact Apple may have multiple business relationships with an old friend of a company doesn't mean they are paying multiple times for the same thing. They are paying ARM multiple times for different things on different timescales.



    You really underestimate the concept of long-thought, which probably means you aren't old enough to have been shafted by long-thought yet. [Exercise: what long thought might I be referencing? Whatever the answer is can only be a guess unless you work in Apple and dine with Steve, neither of which I do. So I am only "guessing too", but not all guesses are created equal so give it a shot.] Oh well, either you will develop the sight or you won't, not for anyone else to say. But keep on keeping on, keep your eyes open and learn to not be so believing of the first article you come across. I promise you I will continue to be a deep reader, not a surface skimmer.



    No, you calling Qualcomm a milquetoast success is the inflammatory remark.



    At least I have a source, not your inflammatory remark that I pulled a number out of my ass. Why don't you bring on your wall street analyst numbers to the table before you start talking?



    I don't think constructive dialog on this forum is heinous ad hom behavior, but what you have done here is clearly not? Starting with calling me ""You are showing yourself to be an absolute talk out your ass sideways idiot" --- when you didn't even know the meaning of "architecture license". It is a specific term with a specific meaning that I specifically used.



    I don't need other people defending me --- never had to rely on it. I can go 1 against 10 in a Matrix Neo vs. Smith fight (and I have in the past). They don't have to like me, but they do respect the fact that the vast majority of the time I do a pretty good research on the subject before I make a comment.



    Let me simplify things for you --- if you sample 10 seconds of a beatles song to put into your music, then you better pay beatles a licensing fee. You sample a portion of the implementation of the cortex core, then you better pay a per unit licensing fee to ARM, simple as that. I have to over-simplify because I am afraid that you might not understand it --- given your past comments on this thread.



    All you talk about is possibilities, not probabilities. Sure it is possible for Apple to pay twice, but is it probable --- not really. Sure it is possible for Apple to create a brand new compatible core in less than 3 years, but is it probable, given that Qualcomm had to do it in 4 years --- less probable. Sure it is possible that Apple can ship a compatible dual core chip in the next few months, but is it probable, given that neither Marvell nor Qualcomm (the two companies that make compatible cores) have yet shipped compatible dual core chips, less probable. Sure it is possible that Apple can use your "imaginary" middle ground and modified a cortex core and ship a modified dual core chip in the next few months, but is it probable, given that first Qualcomm dual core chip is supposed to come with their 2 year old Scorpion core --- and Qualcomm isn't even shipping that dual core chip yet --- less probable. Sure it is possible for Apple to create a dual core chip in massive quantities in the next few months, but is it probable, given that Apple's semiconductor partner Samsung has to buy the nVidia chip instead of using their own orion chip --- less probable.
  • Reply 133 of 133
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Got that off your chest did you? I like your definition of inflammatory -- use of the term milquetoast. Are you working for Qualcomm?



    OK to document your sloppy use of the term "architecture license" and the fact you drifted on what you meant by it over time. We will actually start with the first explicit use of ARM IP mentioned in the thread:



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    CortexA9 has been licensable as IP from ARM since early 2009.



    Notice how the conversation started with the mention of IP. That's the context of the thread at that point. Now we move on to your meandering use of terminology given the context of the thread. Of course, only in your own time-ordered words honey:



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    It's like the xbox CPU's. Microsoft licensed the IBM powerpc architecture and then hire IBM to help them design the xenon cpu. The end result is that the CPU itself is a Microsoft's own IP. Who did most of the work? It's IBM.



    Nice, not only incorrect factually about the relationships, but you used the architecture term where IP was the correct term as well as what was in the context of the thread.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    I specifically stated that it is the same as IBM designing the Xenon chip and Microsoft owning the IP. Microsoft bought an architecture license for the PowerPC chip, then hire IBM to design the Xenon. Microsoft keeps the intellectual property for the Xenon --- IBM can't sell the Xenon to another customer and can't license the Xenon to another customer.



    Here you continued munging the terms together to the point you then set yourself up for a personal context switch that would be invisible to anyone else during the natural flow of the thread. Again your post was factually incorrect on the business relationship between IBM and Microsoft



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    This is like AMD selling a x86 compatible CPU.



    I include this as it shows you don't write clearly about or understand IP law too, even though it wasn't part of the architecture-architecture soirée. You have spent several posts to this point stating that company A has to license and pay company B for IP, yet you cite a situation where the courts found reverse engineering and generic terminology to mean licensing and copyright violations didn't exist. By this time readers of the full posts are faced with a preponderance of your interchangeable IP/architecture wording and clear indications you have significant limitations when discussing them.



    Now the two post exchange where you pulled your architecture switcharoo:



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    ARM licenses IP, not chips.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    I know that only 4 companies to-date has signed ARM architecture license --- Qualcomm, Infineon, Marvell and Microsoft. They can design their own cores.



    I know that all the other players license the cores and put their own extra stuff around it.



    There it was. Looked at from the whole thread we can see the shift and see what you originally meant here. Given the excerpts above, if we only follow from them the difference between the phrases " architecture license" and "license the cores" is utterly opaque. It reads like more confusion. Not to mention it was still incorrect on a couple levels, making it even more difficult to discern your shift in use of the term architecture.



    Enough on that, messiness in your terminology use has been well established.







    As for your "I'm Neo" declaration and saying you have done it before. That says something other that what you think it does.



    I also think you are out of your element in citing the sampling thresholds for music. They are quite specific and legally established in the courts. And it's not 10 seconds although the number 10 was quite prevalent in late '80s and early '90s sampling cases. Maybe a little less use of numbers where they expose your limitations.



    And then with the reading again. I swear if you slowed down and read what is posted you wold tighten up your sloppiness by leaps and bounds.



    You are the only person on the board suggesting Apple is creating a "brand new compatible core" from first principle ARM IP. Others including myself have been stating Apple is deriving their core from the base ARM design, with power use customizations being the focus. While not trivial by any means, it is a drastically simpler task than designing from scratch (or doing as Qualcomm did trying to integrate the baseband processing into the CPU design itself, not just package it in a SoC or provide a SoC interface to it). If you would let go of your personal interpretations and false attributions such as "brand new compatible core" on others writings where it doesn't exist you might not get as much flack about poor comprehension skills or being called out for making stuff up.
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