Content

1. In a short line
2. ARM Vision Day: New Armv9 Architecture
3. Intel: some have new architecture, some have old problems
4. Instead of a conclusion: A x B x C = X, if X is less than the cost for revision, then …

In a short line

The Galaxy S21 Ultra is a very good phone

Samsung is fiercely defending its flagship lineup. Reduced price at the start (compared to last year), aggressive discounts and promotions just a month after the start of sales (in the US market). Analyst companies are talking about a tripling of sales in the US and + 30% in South Korea. In general, against the background of the failed sales of the S20, there is nothing surprising.

However, while preparing a selection of TV series for April, I noticed one more news. Samsung has agreed with streaming service Hulu that the latter will put Samsung on a show called Exposure, in which people compete to be the best mobile photographer in the United States. On the air since April 26. Honestly, curious to see what happens. To create an interesting show, from which advertising ears do not stick out, is not an easy task.

BlackBerry 5G

A couple of times a question came to the mail, how is my BlackBerry Key2 doing. He’s doing great. It lies on the leg of the monitor, and the third SIM card is table in it (when it is not busy in test smartphones), and I still automatically pick it up when I reply to mail from a smartphone, I like the sensations of typing on a physical keyboard.

Back in mid-February, there was news that in the next few months OnwardMobility (a new contender for the revival of the brand, who bought a license from the original BlackBerry, which is now very successful in software solutions) will tell about a new smartphone.

So far, silence, but there are certain rumors.

The smartphone will definitely have a physical keyboard and it will support 5G. Separately, the company noted that additional control of the reliability of not only software, but also the entire supply chain will be provided with an eye to the highest levels of security (state level. The CEO of the company promised an “ultra-safe” device.

All this is a little alarming. One gets the impression that an ultra-expensive device will be released on not the newest hardware (for safety and proven solutions are needed), which they will try to sell to officials. However, I suspect that due to the current deficit in the markets, production with announcements will be postponed.

What do you think? Is there room in 2021-22 for a smartphone with a physical keyboard?

ARM Vision Day: New Armv9 Architecture

Why is there so much talk about ARM chipsets lately?

Thanks to Apple and Nvidia for popularizing Arm Holdings. A couple of years ago, the company was rarely mentioned. Everyone knew about Qualcomm, MediaTek or Exynos. But Arm Holdings remained in the shadows, since it does not work with end consumers, but is engaged in the design of chipsets and sells licenses for using the ARM architecture. Pay attention to the spelling. If all capital letters, then we are talking about chipsets, if there are lowercase letters, then about the company.

Arm has been buzzing around lately for two categories of reasons.

Firstly, it is the media agenda.

Apple first released the ARM-based MacBook. And when Apple does something, you like it or not, you still find out how Intel differs from ARM. Along the way, Nvidia thought about buying Arm Holding, which excited the entire market so much that it reached the common people.

The second category of reasons for popularity is a combination of availability and performance in certain tasks, and, consequently, the promise of ARM processors.

One of the promising factors for ARM chipsets is that any company has the opportunity to buy a license from Arm Holdings and create its own processor. For example, Amazon is known not only for the fact that its employees are so busy with work that they are forced to sip into a bottle, but also for the development of its own AWS Graviton processor on the ARM architecture (already the second generation). It is a dedicated processor for the company’s cloud services (Amazon is one of the largest cloud computing providers in the world). Guess which processor vendor Amazon has replaced?

Amazon claims that its “home” processor copes with tasks up to 7 times faster and 40% more profitable (in terms of price / performance ratio) than solutions on the x86 architecture. In this case, we are talking about tasks related to machine learning, application servers, high performance computing, video processing, and working with databases.

For example, if we take the current rating of Top-500 supercomputers, then for the time being it consisted of 64-bit processors from Intel, using the x86 architecture. Less than 5% were supercomputers on AMD processors, there were also 13 computers on IBM processors and only 3 supercomputers on ARM. In mid-2020, the Japanese supercomputer “Fugaku” debuted, not only taking first place in all supercomputer ratings, but showing performance that surpassed the combined power of 5 supercomputers following it.

Actually, the main reason for its popularity lies in the Amazon advertising brochure – it is 7 times faster and 40% more profitable in terms of price / performance ratio.

What are the benefits of the new Armv9 architecture?

I would like to say that the 9th version is an architecture that is more in line with modern trends, since the main emphasis is on:

1. Artificial Intelligence. AI, machine learning are hot and promising topics. This area includes autonomous cars, virtual and augmented reality, data processing.
2. The DSP capabilities that I think will become visible first: photo, video and audio processing (+ speech recognition) on the fly. We all already love talking with assistants, using assistants as chat bots, taking pictures, upscaling videos up to 8K. And VR porn, according to Pornhub, so generally shot into the skies during the pandemic.
3. Improved security.

Let’s talk about the last point in a little more detail, since, in my opinion, it is the most mystically interesting (and incomprehensible).

Arm is about to rethink current processor security. The system now assumes that higher-level software can “see” the operation of lower-level software. Conventionally, the management system is like in life, when a director can poke his nose into any department and there are no secrets from him. And if the director is an eccentric, then he can spoil everyone’s blood, or even ruin the company.

Arm Holdings’ idea is called Confidential Compute Architecture (CCA). The bottom line is that for each task / group of tasks so-called realms will be created, or, in simple terms, opaque containers, and even the OS will not see what is happening there. This is cool if the OS is infected and is the source of the information leak. That is, it turns out that everyone works together, as it were, but are absolutely independent from each other. If you enter data in any application, then there is no need to be afraid that the OS will recognize them, remember and merge them. This can be useful, for example, in applications where you need to specify a bank card. The feature will also be appreciated by large corporations, which, relatively speaking, will not have to worry if their employee has caught a virus on … (I wanted to say “on a porn site”, but I thought it was already outdated … where can a virus be found now? from a torrent?).

Arm promised to provide more details and examples in June.

Why is new architecture important?

Once a year, Arm Holdings presents its developments, which are then licensed by other companies. Accordingly, if you want to know what the next Qualcomm chipset will be, which is usually announced in December, then you should watch the Arm presentation – Arm TechDay. This business, to be honest, is terribly boring, as it is designed for business consumers. Apparently, for this reason, not the slightest attempt is made to somehow entertain the people.

For the past 10 years since the introduction of the Armv2011 architecture in 8, everything has been well and consistently predictable. At a relatively closed event, dominated by analysts, they showed a presentation and talked about the performance gains compared to the previous version – new cores, new graphics, new AI capabilities and how this will affect smartphones.

As you know, once a generation there is a Mortal Kombat tournament, and once every 10 years, Arm updates the architecture. The event was named Vision Day, because it is about a vision of the future. I suppose, for ease of understanding the importance of what is happening, you can compare the new architecture of ARM processors with a new communication standard, for example, with the transition from 4G to 5G. Although, given that there were no such significant changes as during the transition from Armv7 to v8, it is more accurate to compare with the transition from 3G to 4G.

Accordingly, Arm Holdings faces a similar problem – how to drag everyone to a new architecture. Everyone understands that 4G / 5G is better, but the transition will take time, effort and resources, so it is obvious that the market will be a motley period in the next couple of years.

In conclusion, it should be noted that Arm said the mantra that with the new architecture, any OS on any ARM hardware will be able to receive security updates for “decades” if the developer wants it.

This, by the way, should help solve the current problem of Qualcomm and Google with a short (compared to Apple) support cycle for devices. Not everyone understands this point, but updating Android versions is not only a matter for Google or, say, Xiaomi. The chipset manufacturer, for example, Qualcomm, also plays an important role in this process. Accordingly, Qualcomm needs to participate not only in the release of smartphones on Android 10 or Android 11, but also to do its bit if smartphones are going to upgrade from version 10 to 11. The fact is that Android is updated in its entirety, affecting everything: the OS itself, the drivers for the processor, modem, cameras, and at the end, you remember, all applications are also updated.

Last year Google introduced Project Treble, which was supposed to divide the system into layers and thus simplify updates, since there would be low-level layers (processor, modem, etc.) that would not be affected by the update. Arm decided to help everyone this year by implementing Arm SystemReady.

Intel: some have new architecture, some have old problems

Gelsinger’s speech

Speaking about the new ARM architecture, one cannot but recall Intel. The company is really having a hard time, as the situation is getting more and more unpleasant every day.

First, Apple struck a sneaky blow by switching to ARM chipsets in MacBooks, then Nvidia at the presentation emphasized that the 30th GeForce series works perfectly in conjunction with AMD processors, and now here is the new Armv9 architecture with regular admonitions about ubiquity and 100 % security.

However, as you remember, Intel does not sit idly by. The company recently had a new CEO, Pat Gelsinger (who previously worked at Intel and was behind the development of the Intel 80486 processor, then left and is now back).

Gelsinger scares me a little, as he regularly quotes the Holy Scriptures on Twitter. And what could be worse than a God-fearing engineer? For some reason it seems to me that someday he will quote John the Theologian from the Apocalypse and the uprising of machines will begin.

However, this is still far away, but for now Intel is trying to fight in an honest way. Due to the most interesting presentation, Xiaomi did not have time to talk about Intel in the previous article. By the way, if you missed about Xiaomi, please read it. The company begins a new A-brand stage.

Intel, of course, is not as bright and colorful as Xiaomi, but also something interesting. So on March 23rd, Gelsinger gave the keynote speech and began very loudly, “Today we are heading for a new era of Intel innovation and technology leadership.” And I’m pretty damn sure he almost said next, “Let go of Skynet.” But seriously, Gelsinger is an interesting and charismatic person, watch at least a little video below to get an idea of ​​the man who led Intel.

At the event, Gelsinger said everything to reassure and encourage employees, investors and fans of the company.

First of all, he said that work on 7 nm processors is in full swing and in the second quarter of this year the company will share the first results of the Meteor Lake project.

Secondly, the company is going to spend $ 20 billion to modernize production and build two new plants in Arizona (with the support of the administration of President Biden).

Third, he announced plans to partner with IBM to create the next generation “logic” together (that is, IBM will help with new technological processes).

Fourth, the company will expand its work with third-party processor factories. And he said that starting in 2023, they will produce not only auxiliary things, but also processors with graphics.

Fifthly, Intel plans to become the main supplier of processor production facilities for the USA and Europe (do you feel why cooperation with the White House AP?). The company has created a separate division of Intel Foundry Services, which will report directly to Gelsinger and will produce any processors – x86, ARM, RISC-V.

A couple of thoughts on Gelsinger’s speech

In January, Echo-105 briefly reviewed Intel’s concerns over Gelsinger’s appointment. And then the material ended with the phrase: “Formally, Intel still has several years to make adjustments and expand the business. However, it is obvious that these will be cardinal changes – contract manufacturing at their factories, active investment in R&D and the transfer of production of some of their processors to outsourcing. ”

Correctly assumed everything except investing in the construction of two new factories. Since the current factories are not 100% loaded either. There are two options. Or Intel expects that it can easily ramp up contract manufacturing. Or, given that the press release separately mentions the creation of 21 thousand jobs and cooperation with the US Presidential Administration, apparently, this is a political decision that will help ensure the first option (about loading production facilities).

It is very curious how the outsourcing of processor production will look like. In particular, it is obvious that we are talking about the capacity of TSMC (well, or there is also Samsung). In theory, the same processors may appear on the market, but made according to different technical processes. That is, for example, desktop Intel Core 11-gen 14 nm from the native Intel plant and the same, but 7 nm, from the TSMC plant.

It is also interesting in the sense that now Intel processors, in fact, do not lag behind AMD processors released according to the 7 nm process technology (but yes, they get hotter and more power hungry in terms of performance per unit of energy). Accordingly, imagine the current processor from Intel, but according to a more modern technical process, this is an increase in both performance and energy efficiency, and immediately a clear victory over AMD. Or what do you think?

Instead of a conclusion: A x B x C = X, if X is less than the cost for revision, then …

In 2016-17, Apple sold laptops in which the screen cable was too short. They took such a loop because it was an option to save money, but this led to fraying of the loop. The problem has been dubbed Flexgate. The company was sued.

The court agreed with the plaintiffs’ arguments that Apple could not have been unaware of the problem, but decided to sell such laptops anyway.

For some reason, I immediately remembered the scene of the “Fight Club” (film) about the formula for recalling cars with defects: “A car at a speed of 100 km / h has a rear differential that fails and it crashes. Should such a car be recalled for revision? Take the number of cars sold (A) multiply by the probable number of rejections (B) and the average percentage of out-of-court settlements (C). A x B x C = X. If X is less than the cost of rework, we do nothing. “

And there is such a formula in every self-respecting company …

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