Updated at 4:40 p.m. PDT: adding to discussion of next-generation Nvidia Ion chip.
As graphics kingpin Nvidia tries to reshape itself into a broad-based computing company, it is taking big gambles with potentially big payoffs, while it fends off challenges from rivals Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.
The world's largest supplier of standalone graphics chips for PCs needs to grow. Established markets have matured and Nvidia must seek out other ways to make money.
Nvidia's Fermi-based GF100 graphics processor.
"In almost every market they have entered they have become dominant," said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, which tracks the graphics chip market. "Almost 90 percent market share in the workstation business and 55 to 65 percent in the graphics business. But if you're that successful you can't really grow the market anymore, and if you want to keep growing your company, then you have to get into new markets."
Enter supercomputing and Nvidia's brand-new Fermi architecture. "That's a huge market and big margins," said Peddie. Fermi was announced last week at an Nvidia conference to great fanfare when prestigious Oak Ridge National Laboratory said it plans to use Fermi in a future supercomputer.
It would be an understatement to say that the Fermi chip potentially packs a computing wallop. The chip integrates an astounding 3 billion transistors, about three times the number of transistors in Nvidia's most powerful graphics chip now on the market, and it has been designed with features that make it more suitable for high-performance computers, the first time that Nvidia has architected a chip this way.
Fermi GPUs, each containing 512 processing cores, would enable "substantial scientific breakthroughs" that would be impossible without the new technology, Jeff Nichols, Oak Ridge's associate lab director for computing and computational sciences, said last week.
Nvidia hopes to parlay this computing power into the mainstream. (For a comparison of Fermi with AMD's newest graphics chip see: ATI and Nvidia face off--obliquely.)
"Fermi will offer Nvidia the opportunity to grow our consumer business by having the fastest raw graphics power," said Drew Henry, general manager of Nvidia's bread-and-butter GeForce graphics business. "But it's also going to expand our business by allowing people to process better video and photo applications and to use the GPU for many, many more mainstream applications." (GPU stands for graphics processing unit.)
... Read more
Nvidia's new Fermi chip is being billed as a supercomputing chip but Nvidia doesn't want you to forget that it is also aimed at Apple's Snow Leopard and Windows 7.
The Fermi chip was announced with much fanfare on Wednesday as key silicon in a future supercomputer from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. But, wait, Fermi is also going to be great at accelerating stuff in Snow Leopard and Windows 7--not to mention a great gaming chip, according to Bill Dally, chief scientist at Nvidia who spoke during a conference call with analysts on Thursday.
The Fermi graphics processing unit (GPU)--which packs 512 processing cores--will support DirectX-11, a technology for speeding certain multimedia software in Windows 7, and also support an analogous technology in Snow Leopard, OpenCL.
"A lot of (the chip's new) features accelerate key consumer applications. Both Snow Leopard and Windows 7 enable the GPU to be used as a co-processor to accelerate third-party applications," Dally said. With a "discrete (standalone) GPU they can get very good performance on these applications," he said.
Applications that Nvidia says will be accelerated by the Fermi chip
(Credit: Nvidia)Dally gave examples (see graphic) of consumer titles such as Adobe's Creative Suite, Motion DSP's vReveal (for fixing photographs), and Badaboom (for creating iPod video).
He offered a qualifier, however. "We are paying a bit of a compute tax in that we launched a part where a lot of the consumer compute applications haven't really taken hold yet. But over time as more consumer computer applications are developed that take advantage of our compute (consumer) features...I think it's going to give us a big leg up," he said.
And being an Nvidia chip, games are a big target market. "Fermi adds value to games by doing exactly the same kind of scientific simulations that we use to predict climate and to understand the genome and other things," according to Dally. "A great example of that is our PhysX package that basically does physical simulations to make games appear more real."
He also explained why the chip was billed as a supercomputer chip initially and not a gaming chip. "It's a zero-sum game. You have a certain amount of die (chip) area, a certain power budget. It is the case that we put a bunch of die area into double-precision floating point, a bunch of die area into ECC. And for gaming graphics applications, those give less returns than they do for the scientific applications," he said. Double-precision floating point operations are used heavily in scientific computing. ECC, or error correcting code, is a technology that can correct data errors on the fly.
And Dally explained how Fermi can be scaled down to lower-end chips used in the gaming and consumer segments. "We're not talking about other (chips) at this point in time but you can imagine that we can scale this part by having fewer than the 512 cores and by having these cores have fewer of the features, for example less double-precision," he said.
All the Fermi products, including gaming and professional workstation chips, will be announced "pretty close together." Chips are expected sometime in the coming few months.
And how does Fermi stack up against current public information about Intel's future "Larrabee" graphics chip? "We can't compare anything to Larrabee until it shows up and can actually be measured," said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, which tracks the graphics chip market. "But remember, Larrabee was started over two years ago and both ATI and Nvidia have had two new designs out since then," he said. "So the pressure will be on Intel to chase fast-moving ATI and Nvidia," Peddie said. ATI, which is Advanced Micro Devices' graphics chip unit, already has a chip in stores--the Radeon HD 5800-- that supports Windows DirectX-11.
iFixt in short order has done a tear-down of the Microsoft Zune HD media player, which hit retail Tuesday.
The core silicon in the Zune HD is an Nvidia Tegra processor (see photo) based on the power-frugal ARM chip design. The system-on-chip uses less than 0.5 watts of power. Tegra's defining feature is the integrated Nvidia GeForce graphics chip, which gives the Zune its graphics processing oomph.
(Credit:
iFixit)
The Zune HD also uses a SiPORT HD radio chip and an SDRAM chip from Hynix, according to iFixit. The accelerometer, for automatically orienting the display between portrait and landscape modes, is from Kionix.
Probably the most conspicuous feature of the Microsoft media player is a 3.3 inch OLED display capacitive touch screen. OLED screens draw significantly less power than a traditional LCD. "This isn't the first product with an OLED, but it's certainly cutting-edge technology, and something we haven't seen in any Apple ... Read more
Updated at 12:45 a.m. PDT
Microsoft's Zune HD will use one of the most powerful chips to go into a portable media player yet: Nvidia's multicore Tegra processor.
Nvidia's Tegra chip integrates multiple processor cores
(Credit: Nvidia)Tegra packs two processor cores based on intellectual property from U.K.-based chip designer ARM. One is the main processor--based on the ARM11 core--which runs the operating system. Tegra's defining feature, however, is an additional Nvidia GeForce graphics chip.
"Nvidia brings powerful graphics to the portable media player. This is a unique capability," said Jeff Orr, senior analyst for mobile content at ABI Research.
In total, Tegra integrates eight independent processors, according to Michael Rayfield, general manager of Nvidia's mobile business unit. "We accelerate Flash, we have HD video, we do acceleration of rendering of Web pages on the GPU," Rayfield said Wednesday in a conference call, referring to the graphics processing unit. "The Zune HD will be an amazing showcase of what Tegra is capable of doing."
Its processing prowess notwithstanding, Tegra's design flies in the face of the hot, heat-sink-clad Nvidia graphics processors that power the fastest gaming rigs today. Tegra uses less than 0.5 watts of power, an attribute the chip inherits from its power-stingy ARM parentage. This trickle of power consumption is a tiny fraction of Nvidia's bread-and-butter desktop GeForce processors that are often rated well over 100 watts.
The Zune HD comes with a 3.3-inch, 16:9 OLED (480x272 resolution) screen. And also includes an HD (high-definition) Radio, HD (720p) video out, Wi-Fi, a Web browser (with tap-to-zoom technology), built-in accelerometer, and touchscreen QWERTY keyboard.
Audio codec technology has been developed by PortalPlayer, which Nvidia acquired in 2006.
Zune HD will also include a full-screen Internet browser optimized for multitouch functionality.
CNET Reviews applauded the Zune HD:. "This thing was worth the wait, folks...The Zune finally has the power to make good on the promise of delivering one of the richest music experiences on a portable device."
The Zune HD is the first of many Tegra-based devices to come. "There's about 50 devices in design right now with Tegra," Rayfield said. They range from media players to smartphones to smartbooks to Web pads. Smartphones based on the Tegra are due toward the end of the year.
"The next generation should be better. Current Tegra chips use the ARM11MP processor, next gen will use the faster Cortex-A9. Other IP in the chip is Nvidia's," said Tom R. Halfhill a senior analyst for Microprocessor Report.
Updated at 6:40 p.m. PDT, adding Microsoft Windows 7 and Apple Snow Leopard discussion.
Nvidia on Thursday posted a smaller loss than the year-earlier period but the graphics chip supplier is still grappling with costs related to a chip defect first addressed by the company last July.
Shares of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company were up in after-hours trading.
Nvidia reported a second-quarter loss of $105.3 million, or 19 cents a share, better than the year-earlier period when it posted a loss of $120.9 million, or 22 cents a share.
Revenue was $776.5 million, down 13 percent, from $892.7 million reported in the second quarter of last year.
Excluding items (non-GAAP basis), Nvidia reported a profit of 7 cents a share, better than analyst estimates of a loss of 2 cents a share.
Jen-Hsun Huang, the president and chief executive officer, said the company's "business is recovering. Product demand is improving, and our strategic investments are leading to new growth." Nvidia expects revenue in the third quarter--ending October 25, 2009--to be up 5 to 7 percent over the second quarter.
Gross margin, a critical profit indicator, was 20.2 percent, above the 16.8 percent reported last year.
However, Nvidia's results were negatively affected by an additional net charge of approximately $119.1 million "to cover costs related to a weak die/packaging material set that was used in certain versions of its previous-generation chips. Although the number of units impacted by this issue remains consistent with the company's initial estimates a year ago, the cost of remediation and repair of impacted systems has been higher than originally anticipated," the company said in a statement.
In July 2008, a $196 million reserve was accrued for the purpose of supporting affected customers around the world. The weak die/package material combination is not used in any products currently in production, the company said.
As early as 2007, Hewlett-Packard listed laptop models affected by the defect. In August 2008, Dell also listed affected models. And Apple said in October that it would repair faulty graphics chips.
On a more positive note, Huang said that future operating systems from Microsoft and Apple will "stimulate growth" in 2010 because of new technologies that take better advantage of the graphics processor, making it a "powerful co-processor" that works in conjunction with Intel processors.
Microsoft's Windows 7 and Apple's Snow Leopard will including programming features called Direct Compute and OpenCL, respectively, that accelerate graphics-based processing for everyday computing tasks.
Microsoft has confirmed that the Nvidia "Tegra" chip is inside the upcoming Zune HD, a big win for Nvidia.
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Microsoft Zune HD
This was reported earlier at Engadget and follows reports earlier this week.
"There's been a lot of chatter about us possibly putting the Nvidia Tegra chip in the Zune HD," Matt Akers, software development engineer in test at Microsoft, said in a June 19 podcast. "Well, we're going to go ahead and confirm that. Yes, the Zune HD does have the Tegra chip in it."
He added: "So much better battery life, graphics acceleration. This thing's like a mini laptop in your hand."
Tegra is the first processor Nvidia has built for power-frugal handheld devices, a major departure from the large, power-hungry graphics processors that it sells to the gaming rig and workstation markets.
The system-on-a-chip (SOC) uses less than 0.5 watts of power, an attribute the main Tegra processor inherits from its power-stingy ARM parentage. (And a tiny fraction of the 50-watt-plus ratings of the chipmaker's desktop graphics silicon.) The defining feature of the Tegra SOC, however, is the Nvidia GeForce graphics chip.
Nvidia Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said at the company's analyst day on Tuesday that the Tegra processor is expected to account for half of Nvidia's business in a few years.
The rumors about Microsoft and Tegra go back to November. The first round of rumors put Nvidia's Tegra in a Microsoft phone (which some analysts still believe is a possibility).
To date, Tegra has 42 design wins, ranging from media players to smartphones to Netbooks, according to Michael Rayfield, general manager of Nvidia's mobile business unit, who spoke during Analyst Day. Out of those 42, about 18 are smartphones, he said. "You'll start to see those show up toward the end of this year."
The Zune HD--due later this year--comes with a 3.3-inch, 16:9 OLED (480x272 resolution) screen. And also includes an HD (high-definition) radio, HD (720p) video out, Wi-Fi, a Web browser (with tap-to-zoom technology), built-in accelerometer, and a touch-screen QWERTY keyboard.
The rumors appear to be true: Microsoft's Zune HD media player will use Nvidia's Tegra, a processor that will play a pivotal role in the chip supplier's future.
Microsoft Zune HD
(Credit: Microsoft)PC Perspective reported Tuesday that the Zune chip had been confirmed by Nvidia "staff" at Computex, earlier this month.
Nvidia Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said at the company's analyst day on Tuesday that the Tegra processor is expected to account for half of Nvidia's business in a few years. If this prediction comes true, Nvidia will bear little resemblance to the company it is today: a maker of large, power-hungry chips for gamers and professionals.
Tegra is the polar opposite of the hot, heat-sink-clad graphics processors that power the fastest gaming rigs today. Tegra uses less than 0.5 watts of power (compared, for example, with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 295, which is rated at 289 watts), an attribute the chip inherits from its power-stingy ARM parentage.
Tegra packs two ARM chips. One is the main application processor--based on the ARM11 core--which runs the operating system. Tegra's defining feature, however, is the Nvidia GeForce graphics chip: this is what likely caught Microsoft's eye. In total, Tegra integrates eight independent processors, according to Michael Rayfield, general manager of Nvidia's mobile business unit, who spoke during Nvidia's Analyst Day.
Audio codec technology has been developed by PortalPlayer, which Nvidia acquired in 2006, Rayfield said.
To date, Tegra has 42 design wins, according to Rayfield. "They range from media players to smartphones to smartbooks to Web pads," he said. Out of those 42, about 18 are smartphones. "You'll start to see those show up toward the end of this year," he said.
The smartphones are "household names, household carriers. Names you'll recognize," he said, possibly alluding to Microsoft, among other major brands. A total of 27 manufacturers are working on devices, he said.
Not everybody is impressed, however. "It's surprised me that it's taking as long as it is to get to tier-one (telecommunications carriers)," said Doug Freedman of Broadpoint AmTech. "Tegra has been available for over a year."
The Zune HD--due later this year--comes with a 3.3-inch, 16:9 OLED (480x272 resolution) screen. And also includes an HD (high-definition) Radio, HD (720p) video out, Wi-Fi, a Web browser (with tap-to-zoom technology), built-in accelerometer, and touchscreen QWERTY keyboard.
Updated at 4:30 p.m. PDT adding Tegra, Intel, and Ion discussions.
On Tuesday, Nvidia Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said at the company's analyst day that the graphics processor will be an equal partner with Intel processors, citing Apple as an early trendsetter.
On other fronts, Huang said that the ARM-based Tegra processor is expected to account for half of Nvidia's business in a few years. He also repeated claims about Intel crimping the success of its Ion processor in Netbooks.
Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang
(Credit: Nvidia)Huang said that "CPU-GPU co-processing" is the future of computing. (CPU stands for central processing unit. GPU for graphics processing unit.)
"Apple is an early indicator," Huang said during his opening remarks that were streamed over the Web, referring to the importance that Apple is placing on the graphics processor. "The MacBook Pro to the MacBook Air has a GPU," he said. And he waxed eloquent about how the performance and power efficiency of the updated version of the Air has benefited by having co-processors: an Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU.
"Doing the right job with the right tool is more efficient," he said, referring to the Air, which Huang claims runs longer and cooler with a GPU. Typically, ultra-thin laptops like the Air don't have a discrete (separate) Nvidia or ATI graphics processor.
Apple currently uses Nvidia GPUs across its laptop product line and touts the potential for GPUs on its Web site. "OpenCL (Open Computing Language), makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit," according to a statement on Apple's Web site.
And at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, an Apple executive expanded on this theme, explaining how Mac OS X will support GPGPU--general-purpose graphics processing unit--which lets a graphics chip run some computing jobs in addition to its ordinary job displaying graphics.
Huang also addressed its Tegra chip, which is an ARM-based design that integrates an Nvidia GeForce processor. Tegra is targeted at smartphones and Netbooks. Responding to a question from an analyst, he said that in a few years Tegra may represent half of its business, with the rest divided up between the professional (Tesla, Quadro) and the consumer GeForce markets.
Huang also repeated his assertion that Intel is using pricing--what he called "subsidies"--and "MDF" (market development funds) to prevent Nvidia from selling more of it Ion processors to customers. He claimed the success of the Ion processor would be two to three times greater without Intel interference.
Nvidia has its own grand scheme for Netbooks, the tiny laptops that have gained wide acceptance running on software and hardware from Microsoft and Intel, respectively.
Michael Rayfield, general manager of Nvidia's mobile business unit
(Credit: Nvidia)At the giant Computex conference starting Tuesday in Taiwan, Nvidia will be showing hardware running on its Tegra processor and Windows CE, the version of Windows used most prominently to date in business-use handheld computers. And, down the road, Nvidia has high hopes for devices based on Google's Android.
Tegra is a system-on-a-chip that integrates a processor based on a design from U.K.-based ARM and Nvidia's GeForce graphics silicon, among other functions. The goal is to bring robust PC-like graphics to small devices such as Netbooks and handheld devices--the latter also referred to as mobile Internet devices.
In a break from Computex tradition, Nvidia will have phone companies in tow. "We're bringing the carriers in. I've got 100 people showing up from carriers at Computex," Michael Rayfield, general manager of Nvidia's mobile business unit, said in a phone interview Friday.
Tegra will be shown at the trade show in devices that manufacturers "are about ready to release into production," Rayfield said.
"The Internet is all about (Adobe) flash and HD (high-definition) now so we've built a platform that can do that," he said. "There are two operating systems we support. Microsoft Windows CE and, as it becomes more interesting for large screens, (Google) Android," Rayfield said.
"We do Android for smartphones and we're working to do hardware acceleration on Android as it goes to larger displays," Rayfield said. In February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nvidia announced that it is working with Google and the Open Handset Alliance to get its Tegra processor into phones based on Google's Android operating system.
Android will likely appear commercially in larger devices, such as Netbooks, by the middle of next year, Rayfield said. "Android, as it stands now, does not do hardware acceleration," he said, referring to graphics-based acceleration of video and other multimedia applications. "We've already got 720p acceleration on Android internally," he said. 720p is a lower-resolution standard for high-definition video.
Rayfield continued. "Android has got a roar ahead of it but I think it's three of four quarters from a large-screen device. And the market wants something interesting before that."
... Read moreIntel is on the record with size limits for Netbooks. Will this restriction be tied to lower Windows 7 pricing from Microsoft? Yes, say reports.
Will Netbook pricing be tied to size?
(Credit: Acer)A recent ZDNet blog reported that the maximum allowable diagonal screen size for a Windows 7-based Netbook will be 10.2 inches. And on Tuesday, reports cited Taiwan's hardware manufacturers--so-called original design manufacturers, or ODMs--stating that Microsoft may tie screen-size limits to Windows 7 pricing.
The upshot: Netbooks that exceed 10.2 inches will not qualify for the lower Windows 7 licensing rates (e.g., Windows 7 Starter and Home Basic for Small Notebook PCs), according to reports.
Intel is already on the record defining an Atom processor-powered Netbook as having a screen size no larger than 10.2 inches.
Other maximum Windows 7-based Netbook limits in the lower-price tier include a 250GB hard disk drive or a 64GB solid-state drive, according to Tech ARP.
Processors will max out at 2GHz and have a CPU thermal design power (power envelope) that is less than or equal to 15 watts, not including the graphics and chipset, according to the same report.
There is no ostensible limit on graphics horsepower, however. On Monday, Lenovo announced the first Netbook from a top-tier PC maker that includes Nvidia's Ion chipset. If other PC makers follow with Ion-based Netbooks running Windows 7, this is expected to boost the device's ability to handle more demanding content such as 1080p high-definition video.
But challenges may arise later this year for Nvidia when Intel brings out the "Pineview" Atom chip that integrates the graphics onto the same piece of silicon as the main processor.
All of this comes in the wake of rumors that Microsoft may lift the restriction that the operating system run no more than three applications at a time.
