Despite persistent rumors, Nvidia's chief executive says the graphics chip supplier is not working on an Intel-compatible chip.
Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang
(Credit: Nvidia)In an exclusive interview with CNET Thursday, I asked CEO Jen-Hsun Huang about the possibility of Nvidia coming up with its own x86 (Intel-compatible) chip technology, after the company reported strong third-quarter earnings. A recurring rumor has it that Nvidia is developing a chip that would be able to run the same software that runs on all Intel- and AMD-based PCs worldwide.
"No," he said when asked if there was any truth to the rumor. "Nvidia's strategy is very, very clear. I'm very straightforward about it. Right now, more than ever, we have to focus on visual and parallel computing."
Huang went on to describe where the chip supplier sees its best opportunities for growth. "Our strategy is to proliferate the GPU (graphics processing unit) into all kinds of platforms for growth," he said. "GPUs in servers for parallel computing, for supercomputing--and cloud computing with our GPU is a fabulous growth opportunity--and streaming video."
"And also getting our GPUs into the lowest power platforms we can imagine and driving mobile computing with it," Huang added, referring to its Tegra chip, which, for example, powers Microsoft's Zune HD media player.
Despite Huang's denials, Doug Freedman of Broadpoint AmTech is the latest to postulate that Nvidia will enter the x86 central processing unit market. "We feel Nvidia could become a supplier of x86 CPUs by necessity, perhaps in the next 12 months (if not sooner) to preserve both GPU and chipset revenue," Freedman said in a note recently.
"We believe the company has hired former Transmeta staff extensively," Freedman said. Transmeta was at one time a low-power x86-compatible chip supplier. Earlier this year, Intellectual Ventures acquired the patent portfolio of Transmeta.
Huang also dismissed the the possibility of Nvidia using Globalfoundries as a manufacturing partner--typically referred to as a "foundry" or a "fab"--for its chips, after saying in the earnings conference call that Nvidia's longstanding foundry partner--Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)--was not allocating it enough capacity.
"Globalfoundries is an AMD fab, right?" he said. "Globalfoundries is AMD's fab. Our strategy is TSMC."
Updated at 11:10 a.m. PDT: adding Walmart dv2 laptop information.
Concerns about Advanced Micro Devices' future are being aired as the company celebrates a chip milestone.
HP Pavilion dv2 packs a low-power AMD chip. Can AMD compete effectively with Intel-based ultra-thins?
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)The chipmaker said Wednesday that it has shipped 500 million x86 (Intel-compatible) processors since the company's founding in 1969. And to celebrate, AMD is giving away four Hewlett-Packard dv2 ultra-thin notebooks based on its low-power Athlon Neo X2 chip. But the laptop giveaway, ironically, underscores one of AMD's challenges.
Doug Freedman, analyst at Broadpoint AmTech, said in a research note earlier this week that the dv2 laptop has "failed to ramp," meaning it has not gained much traction in the market. Best Buy, for example, though offering a range of other HP dv series laptop models, has not offered the dv2 to date. (Update: However, Walmart offers the dv2 laptop.)
But Freedman's comments are mild compared to what some other analysts are saying after AMD posted disappointing financial results Tuesday.
A blog on ZDNet Wednesday cited a few of the most negative comments. "AMD's tepid top-line results/guidance and weak margins suggest continued execution issues and potential share loss," said Goldman Sachs analyst James Covello.
And J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Danely said: "We believe AMD is losing share to Intel due to inferior products and is being hurt by lack of a Netbook processor...We would note Intel processor sales outgrew AMD by 13 percent during 2Q09 and are expected to outgrow AMD by another 3 percent during 3Q09."
And, as the ZDNet blog points out, maybe the most damning comments come from JMP Securities Alex Gauna: "Another disappointing quarter from the perennial CPU also-ran," he said, referring to AMD's business of making central processing units (CPUs).
Gauna added that ARM chip technology may make AMD even less competitive down the road as future devices adopt these chips. ARM is a low-power chip design used by Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Apple, Samsung, and others.
Of course AMD doesn't see it this way. Dirk Meyer, AMD's president and CEO, said in a statement Tuesday that "new platform, microprocessor, and graphics introductions planned for the second half of 2009 position us well to improve (profit) margins and meet our financial goals for the year."
AMD also said Tuesday that during the second quarter Dell, HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems announced new servers based on the six-core AMD Opteron processor and that the ATI graphics unit introduced the first 40-nanometer desktop graphics processor, the first 1GHz graphics chip during the quarter, and held the first public preview of working silicon and drivers supporting Microsoft's upcoming DirectX 11 technology featured in Windows 7.
In a recent and so-far relatively obscure video, VMware CEO Paul Maritz offers, at times, a sharp critique of the Intel chip architecture and the challenges of getting it into cell phones.
VMware CEO Paul Maritz
(Credit: EMC)At the TiEcon 2009 conference in mid-May, Maritz gave a brief oral history of the Intel x86 chip architecture. He noted its shortcomings and the challenges presented by ARM, the chip design that powers most of the world's cell phones and will power Netbooks running on Google's just-announced Chrome operating system.
The video has been made available by TechPulse360.
"Consumer devices came along and there was one problem with the x86 instruction set. All of that complexity in there, accumulated over the years, meant it's a power hog. It loves electricity," he said in the video, referring to Intel's x86 architecture, which virtually all PCs use today.
Maritz--who worked for five years as a software and tools developer at Intel before spending 14 years as a top-level executive at Microsoft and then joining VMWare a year ago--continued: "In consumer devices like phones you can't have that. Battery life becomes paramount," he said.
Maritz described how Intel experimented with the ARM processor architecture and bought a license "for a much simpler microprocessor," referring to Intel's development of the StrongARM architecture, which eventually became a designed called XScale.
Subsequently, Intel decided to get out of the business, according to Maritz's depiction, because the devices were "low-end, low-power, low-profit." Here Maritz is referring to Intel's XScale business, which was sold to Marvell Technology in 2006.
Maritz continued, describing how Intel wanted to get back to its roots: "high performance, complex microprocessors." Then, Intel realized, according to Maritz, that it had to get back into that market: "This ARM thing is a real problem, we're going to have to go back into that space."
In response to the video, an Intel representative said: "Paul Maritz is not privy to all of Intel's future product plans."
Note: Though the video is from May, it did not come to my attention until very recently. I think the topic is important enough to bring up now because Maritz is a high-profile CEO at a large company that builds software that runs on Intel processors and because he's speaking about one of Intel's greatest challenges.
Updated on Monday, June 15 at 2:20 p.m. PDT: adding multi-core discussion to earlier Windows update.
It's been four years this month since Apple announced it would drop the PowerPC architecture and switch to Intel's x86 design. One person involved in the back-and-forth between Apple and IBM at the time provides some insight into why it happened.
Apple laptop using the PowerPC G3 processor
(Credit: CNET Networks)When Apple made the watershed announcement in June 2005 ending its longstanding relationship with IBM and Motorola, Apple CEO Steve Jobs attributed the switch to a superior Intel roadmap.
"Looking ahead Intel has the strongest processor roadmap by far," Jobs said in a statement at the time. "It's been ten years since our transition to the PowerPC, and we think Intel's technology will help us create the best personal computers for the next ten years."
One oft-cited reason was that Apple didn't believe it could get the requisite performance per watt from processors being supplied by IBM and Freescale--formerly Motorola's chipmaking arm. Translation: Apple was worried about IBM's and Motorola's ability to deliver competitive processors for laptops. (Update: Another reason often put forward is that Apple simply wanted to be able to run Windows.)
A former IBM executive, who worked at IBM at the time and was involved in discussions with Apple, offered his perspective in a conversation we had during dinner at a recent technology conference. Let me emphasize that this is one person's opinion, not necessarily the gospel truth. I will not publish his name or title.
While he acknowledged the public reasons put forward by Apple, there was more to it--not surprisingly--than that. The upshot: Apple wanted better pricing, according to this person.
Apple was paying a premium for IBM silicon, he said, creating a Catch-22. IBM had to charge more because it didn't have the economies of scale of Intel, but Apple didn't want to pay more, even though it supposedly derived more from an inherently superior RISC design as manifested in the PowerPC architecture.
Here's what Jobs said in 2003: "The PowerPC G5 changes all the rules. This 64-bit race car is the heart of our new Power Mac G5, now the world's fastest desktop computer," Jobs said in a statement. "IBM offers the most advanced processor design and manufacturing expertise on earth, and this is just the beginning of a long and productive relationship." (Sounds suspiciously similar to what Jobs said about Intel after Apple made the switch.)
Despite the praise heaped on IBM's technology in 2003, Apple believed, by 2005, that it couldn't compete on cost, according to this person.
... Read moreAn Advanced Micro Devices executive claims that Intel and Apple cut a deal in 2005 that made Intel an exclusive supplier of processors to Apple, preventing AMD from gaining Apple business.
No AMD CPUs are currently used in Apple computers.
(Credit: Apple)The claim, made in a phone interview with Tom McCoy, AMD's senior vice president of legal affairs, earlier this week, holds that Intel has had a longstanding deal to be Apple's sole supplier of microprocessors. To date, Apple has not used an AMD central processing unit (CPU) in any of its products. Currently, only Intel CPUs populate Apple's laptop, desktop, and server lineups.
This assertion by AMD comes in the wake of the EU decision last week to fine Intel $1.45 billion for violating antitrust legislation. Last week's EU decision centered on whether Intel used illegal tactics to deny processor business to AMD at PC makers.
McCoy said that a deal was struck when Apple moved from the PowerPC (IBM-Motorola) chip architecture to the x86 (Intel-AMD) architecture. The transition was announced by Steve Jobs at the Worldwide Developers Conference in 2005.
"They made a deal when they were porting over from PowerPC to x86 as to how much Intel was willing to pay for that port. My guess is that Intel asked for and won exclusivity in return for the help that they gave Apple to port," McCoy said.
McCoy continued: "That deal will not be exclusive forever and when that exclusivity is over, I'm sure they (Apple) will choose on the merits. We'll have a chance to compete for Apple's business when Apple is ready," he said. Intel denies this allegation.
Though McCoy did not make any direct charge of illegal activity regarding such a deal, the assertion is not that far removed from charges made in the July 2005 AMD complaint against Intel. AMD, in that filing, cited Dell, among other examples of exclusive Intel deals with PC makers. "In its history, Dell has not purchased a single AMD x86 microprocessor despite acknowledging Intel shortcomings and customer clamor for AMD solutions, principally in the server sector...Dell has been and remains Intel-exclusive. According to industry reports, Intel has bought Dell's exclusivity with outright payments and favorable discriminatory pricing and service." (Note: Dell, in 2005, offered no AMD-based products, though it does today.)
Whether the deal is exclusive doesn't in itself constitute a legal argument, according to Joshua D. Wright of the George Mason University School of Law, who has written about the EU decision in a blog, "Truth on the Market." "Under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, a plaintiff must show that the exclusive dealing arrangement harmed competition in the form of higher prices, lower output, or reduced innovation," Wright said, responding to an e-mail query.
... Read more
Updated at 10:45 p.m. PST with additional information about Intellectual Ventures
Intellectual Ventures has acquired the patent portfolio of Transmeta, an erstwhile supplier of low-power Intel-compatible x86 processors.
Intellectual Venture Funding, an affiliate of Intellectual Ventures, has picked up 140 U.S. patents and additional pending patent applications owned by Transmeta, which was acquired by privately held Novafora in November of last year.
The Transmeta technology will be used "through two distinct routes," according to an Intellectual Ventures' statement. Novafora will improve its own proprietary designs by using some of the technologies invented by Transmeta. And Intellectual Ventures will provide other companies with access to Transmeta's former patent rights under non-exclusive licensing terms.
The portfolio contains many patents issued in the last few years and has generated, in total, approximately $300 million in revenue, the firm said.
Transmeta's claim to fame as a low-power x86-compatible chip supplier was transitory, and in 2007, about seven years after the company formed, it restructured and ceased being a chipmaker. It reorganized as a Rambus-like IP (intellectual property) company that sues other companies for patent infringement. Transmeta's technology is centered on "code morphing" techniques and very long instruction word (VLIW) design architecture.
"These (patent) additions cover inventions in high-performance, low-power, and embedded processors," Paul Reidy, vice president of semiconductor licensing at Intellectual Ventures, said in a statement.
Intellectual Ventures was founded by Nathan Myhrvold after he retired from his position as chief strategist and chief technology officer of Microsoft.
Updated on January 6 at 11:20 a.m. PST with correction about Nano 3000.
Dual-core Intel Atom rivals are in the works.
Via Nano procesor
(Credit: Via Technologies)Via Technologies is planning a very low-power, dual-core Nano 3000 processor, according to Chinese-language Web site HKEPC.
Via's C7-M processor is used in Hewlett-Packard's 2133 Mini-Note, which preceded the crop of Netbooks based on the Atom CPU. Via processors, however, were subsequently eclipsed by Intel's Atom.
Advanced Micro Devices will target its low-power dual-core "Conesus" at the laptop market segment above Atom's Netbook-centric space.
Meanwhile, Freescale Semiconductor has indicated that it will bring out a very-low-power ARM chip that features a dual-core graphics engine targeted at Netbook-like laptops.
All of these developments indicate that the market for ultra-small devices and laptops should heat up in 2009.
Intel currently offers the dual-core Atom 330 that is targeted at Nettops--small desktop computers.
The dual-core version of the Via Nano--due in late 2009 or 2010--may use a Fujitsu 45-nanometer or TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) 40-nanometer manufacturing process, according to HKEPC. The Intel Atom is based on 45-nanometer process technology.
(Correction: the Via Nano 3000 will not be dual-core. The dual-core version of Nano will ship in the second half of 2009.)
The Via chip may also include SSE4 instruction support, HKEPC said. Generally, SSE4 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4) instructions speed up multimedia applications.
Via is also slated to bring out other improved Nano processors in 2009, according to the report.
Via Technologies is shipping samples of the new Isaiah processor targeted at low-cost compact computers.
Via Isaiah Architecture die plot
(Credit: Via Technologies)Via's current C7 processor is already used by Everex in its CloudBook, by OQO in the Model 02, and by Hewlett-Packard in thin-client computers and in certain models that the computer maker sells in China. Both the C7 and Isaiah are x86-compatible processors, meaning they can run the same software that Intel amd AMD chips do.
Samples of the Isaiah-architecture-based x86 chips are now being shipped "aggressively" to customers with a release timeframe of May-June, said Glenn Henry, CEO of Centaur Technology, the Via subsidiary that designed the chip. The first generation of Isaiah-based products will be pin-compatible with the C7 processor family and offer two to four times the performance, according to Henry. Fujitsu is manufacturing the chip.
Isaiah is targeted specifically at the low-cost "thin-and-light notebook area," Henry said. The same market segment that Intel is targeting for the upcoming Atom "Silverthorne" processor. (Intel prefers to call this segment "netbooks.")
Correction: Isaiah's TDP (Thermal Design Power or power envelope) is not confirmed at this point. However Henry said that Isaiah will consumer more power than Intel's Atom processor.
Other differences include: Atom uses a more simple "in-order execution" design compared to Isaiah's Superscalar, out-of-order design. Because of this more sophisticated design, Isaiah may deliver higher performance than Atom, though independent benchmarking will be the final judge.
Via will need all the technological advantage it can muster just to avoid getting buried by Intel's marketing juggernaut. Intel is "formidable but won't take it all. We've already got design wins. The cost to a manufacturer to change their whole design is quite high unless there's some real benefit to it," Henry said.
Henry also noted that Intel is following Via into the low-cost, small-device market--where Via has been a player for many years--not the other way around.
Via is also planning a dual-core version of Isaiah but Henry would not provide any more details.
Transmeta, the erstwhile x86 chip competitor, is coming under attack from shareholders.
Transmeta's Crusoe processor once powered NEC, Sony subnotebooks.
(Credit: Transmeta)The fact that the company posted revenue of only $44,000 in the third quarter, "which included $43,000 of services revenue and $1,000 of license revenue for royalty payments" may or may not have anything to do with Friday's proposed buyout by Riley Investment Management, which owns over 6 percent of Transmeta shares.
The investment firm does have serious questions about the business model based on the LongRun2 technology--described by Transmeta as a suite of technologies for advanced power management and "leakage control" in processors, among other technologies.
Riley complains that there is no "credible evidence" that shareholders will benefit from the LongRun2-related operating expenses. In an EETimes.com article, Riley also rails against an "illegal and unconscionable bonus of over $10 million" paid to Transmeta's general counsel, "simply for doing his job and settling an intellectual property lawsuit against Intel 10 months after it was filed" and claims that grants to top executives were given "at great cost to the shareholders with no commensurate value creation."
A little history: Transmeta, founded in 1995, ultimately failed in its bid to build better low-power x86 processors than Intel after consistently posting large annual losses. Not able to compete as a chip supplier, Transmeta in 2005 transformed itself into a supplier of x86 intellectual property.
After this transition, Transmeta filed a lawsuit against Intel alleging that the latter infringed upon 10 of Transmeta's patents, including computer architecture and power efficiency technologies. In October, Transmeta settled with Intel for $250 million. But this is a one-time payment and doesn't change the fact that Transmeta has exhibited unreliable earnings, particularly compared with a company like ARM Holdings--with 10 billion ARM design-based chips shipped to date and revenue of $384 million in the third quarter.
Transmeta's meager Q3 revenue juxtaposed with the handsome payouts to executives is, indeed, a cause for concern.
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