Raspberry Pi server clusters

AMD is planning to make 64-bit ARMs for servers.

From ZDNet:

 

AMD has announced that it is teaming up with ARM to develop 64-bit ARM processors for servers to meet growing challenges for data centers. "AMD will transform the computing data center environment today," said AMD CEO and president Rory Read during a press conference on Monday afternoon, asserting that AMD will be the first company to offer both 64-bit ARM and x86 server processors.

More interesting news in this area:

• samsung-may-start-making-arm-server-chips  [slashdot]
• samsung_laying_groundwork_server_chips_analysts_say  [computerworld]

One thing that surprises me is that Intel aren't building up a server market presense based on multiple clustered Atom chips.  Indeed, Atom seems to be almost a stealth product for them, very low key, and that's pretty odd when the future clearly forecasts competition in power/watt from ARM.

Morgaine.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

One thing that surprises me is that Intel aren't building up a server market presense based on multiple clustered Atom chips.  Indeed, Atom seems to be almost a stealth product for them, very low key, and that's pretty odd when the future clearly forecasts competition in [performance]/watt from ARM.

From my recollection of microprocessor history, Intel has never been into low power.  Intel's technological model is squeezing lots and lots of fast transistors onto a piece of element 14 and they are IMO better at doing this than anyone else.  This has allowed them to be lazy about architecture, since transistor performance has so far been able to win.  But all those fast transistors waste a lot of power and require mechanical cooling, which is one of the big reasons PowerPC has had much more success in industrial and automotive applications.  (ARM partners like TI and Freescale are now going after these applications.)

Another thing is profit margin.  Intel chips have always been really expensive.  Again from my recollection of uP history, I think the original quantity 1 price of the Intel 8080 was US$300 (not adjusted for inflation).  Yes, you could get an 8008 and its support chips for less, but the 8080 had much better performance and instruction set -- and it got a lot cheaper really fast.  However, whenever a new Intel uP comes out, it's generally in the same price range.  Compare to RasPi's US$5 SoC.

When a large company with large profit margins is faced with technology that can dramatically improve price/performance, they often retrench and sabotage internal efforts to take advantage of new technology.  Basically, they don't want internal products with improved price/performance to compete with the old ways of doing things which have enjoyed high profit margins.  Too often the large company stalls internal efforts so long that the company isn't ever able to recover.

My favorite example of this phenomenon is the IBM PCjr, which came out in 1984 -- the same year as the original Macintosh.  The PCjr could have taken advantage of newer Intel SoCs such as the 80186 and produced much better performance than the 1981 IBM PC, at much lower cost.  However, IBM didn't want the lower profit margin PCjr to take business away from the older PC, so they made sure the PCjr didn't compete by sabotaging its performance and giving it a toy keyboard.  Well, PCjr didn't compete with the PC -- or with anything else.

JMO/YMMV

Hmmm, dunno.  Deliberate internal sabotage of developments that could lead to better technology at lower profit margins is one possible explanation, but it's singularly short-sighted when there is a possible external competitor coming over the horizon.  Assuming that Intel does do forward planning, the likelihood seems low to me.

It also doesn't seem very likely  for a second reason:  Atom exists, and works very well.  I don't know what the current state of play is, but a couple of years ago it was winning head-to-head reviews against all comers on performance per watt.  Nobody (sane) sabotages a winning product, surely?

That said, the performance of ARM has improved massively in the last few years, so perhaps the situation has changed, not in Intel's favour.

Hmmm, dunno.  Deliberate internal sabotage of developments that could lead to better technology at lower profit margins is one possible explanation, but it's singularly short-sighted when there is a possible external competitor coming over the horizon.  Assuming that Intel does do forward planning, the likelihood seems low to me.

It also doesn't seem very likely  for a second reason:  Atom exists, and works very well.  I don't know what the current state of play is, but a couple of years ago it was winning head-to-head reviews against all comers on performance per watt.  Nobody (sane) sabotages a winning product, surely?

That said, the performance of ARM has improved massively in the last few years, so perhaps the situation has changed, not in Intel's favour.