[Arm-netbook] FSF-Endorseable Processor

[Dr. David Alan Gilbert]

* luke.leighton (luke.leighton at gmail.com) wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 11:45 PM, Dr. David Alan Gilbert <dave at treblig.org>wrote:
> 
> yes.  process shrink and a modest increase in clock rate from 600mhz (65nm)
> to 800mhz (40nm).

Hmm I guess that's low enough not to be a push.

> > But what else is needed?
> >    * Do they have working USB-3/SATA-2 modules that meet the requirements?
> >
> 
>  those hard macros will be licensed.  they'll have been proven in other
> products, and i've checked in advance: they're entirely FSF-Endorseable.
> no proprietary stuff needed.

OK.

> >    * What about the GPU - is there a working GPU ?
> >
> >
> the processor *is* the GPU, that's what's beautiful about it.  to put that
> another way: the CPU has been extended with instructions that massively
> speed up the kinds of operations that a GPU does.

Hmm - I'll stay my normal pessimistic self on that; got an instruction set
manual to show ?

> performance at 600mhz is comparable to many of the embedded GPUs running at
> 300mhz, so power consumption will, clearly, be a bit higher, but that's ok:
> it's not running at 1ghz or 1.5ghz

Hmm have they got any benchmarks for real apps - things like page
scroll times, javascript benchmarks etc?

The thing is that your A10 has a faster clocked core *and* the GPU;
are you sure what you're suggesting isn't possible using a standard ARM cored
SOC, and a dumb CRTC ?

> > If they need to develop anything new then the timescale will be much
> > higher.
> >
> 
> there are absolutely no plans to develop anything new.  the only minor
> change needed would be to the 2nd level cache if doing an 8-core SMP chip.

What have they got so far?

Dave

-- 
 -----Open up your eyes, open up your mind, open up your code -------   
/ Dr. David Alan Gilbert    |       Running GNU/Linux       | Happy  \ 
\ gro.gilbert @ treblig.org |                               | In Hex /
 \ _________________________|_____ http://www.treblig.org   |_______/