Comments on: Secret recipe inside Intel's latest competitor

Montalvo Systems has a multiple-core chip, but not all of the cores are the same. That in part explains why investors have put money into it.

[c7fanboy]

Hello?!?!

VIA has been competing against Intel sucessfully for years. In fact the OQO device mentioned in this article has a VIA chip in it NOT Intel!

[basraw]

VIA fan boy

haha nice catch

but didn't via basically bought cyrix, killed their line of chips.

has via made money in the chip department?

[benjwah]

Definition of success....

Is it really successful to have a line of products that virtually no one has heard of or cares about?

[savagesteve13]

VIA's offerings for limited market

ULP chips are good for embedded systems, closed-top boxes and computing appliances that don't need high horsepower, but for desktop computing they're only barely adequate.

Its too bad they never pushed the symmetric processing CPU's of awhile back, where you could add up to 128 of them.

[wildchild_plasma_gyro]

Turing rules

Montalvo Systems
What to make of these guys as you say secrative but Also on the same wave trying to find their Neiches as much as everyone else.
First thing to make clear there is room for them potentially the future and groups should eye this company with calculated risk.

Right lets go into detail here

The Monecular Science and Physics.
It is becomming more advantagious to to work better with Asymetric designs because as you say you can keep things cooler and potentially save energy.
also As you go down past 32nm you hit blur lines of Quantum Distortion. Problems which arent easily solved in terms of the etching Acuracy required from a production stand point.
Designing stuff Asmetrically better gives you more breathing space to wok with in that environment.

Lets put things into perspective here Intel looks to role out 32nm solutions next year.

Also the Effort required to Design at this scale is high too.

So you hit a production bump on the road while the market finds solutionsto all this.

At 32nm its got Quite far but the Quantum Computers Arent Very Capable yet of modeling Such Physics well enough to aid solutions yet.

This means people will have to potentially adopt other methods and there will be much competition to get in on the act during the bump stage to make better use and innovative use at the current stage.
This opens the door for two oppertunities for new comers and the Industrial Engineering !!!Dogs.

1) for new technologies like fast flash memory based IC systems for specalised communications chips and other New Data processing concepts.

2) For the underdogs to bit better at the heels.

What you need to do in assesing this is working out the Human workforce Resource dynamics to take it all on.

One Area that is lacking is the Areas of Physics and partially Moneculer science.
Scientists Are Much in demand in this area especially one that can work well to the demands of such a mighty industrial load.

Also Good Wide Adaptable engineers is a bit of a wild card.
It is Unknown how well these guys will be able to take dreams and designs to the peddle and yeild pratical economically viable solutions.

The Management is Vital. Intel Has Some real Managment Beasts of man mind power at their beckon who are the most disiplined engineering industry minds on the planet and even during a Industrial bump their still gonna want to Dominate (History proves this if nothing else).

Wasnt it the CEO of AMD that sadi the Big boys Make microprocessors.

Well one day little childern will and the Big boys will be tuning Crystal arrays and Using Magic like technologies to reach the Stars (Hitachi Technology is simply the the jurney not the destination)

Today how ever its the Toughest and most Mentally rewarding business on the planet and theres a large gravs yard in Tech experts Caravan Parks to prove it.

Intel has yet to demonstrait how well it can scale down using it Hafnium layer added.
down at them there nm's is a potentially tough science.
Infact 32 nm is impressive.

I'm not talking about the impossibility of things here i'm talking about industrial viability.

Just like you don't worry about when oil runs out you worry about when it hits peak production and how well its output overall can cope.

I just noticed India is bumped the oil costs to fund oil groups better just after Oil groups helped the US economy.
So this moment in time isn't actually one of sudden down turn but it is one that requires Effort from all and a Devotion to lead towards a better future.

[DivingDancer]

Huh?

Ummmmm..... no comment

[megustansalchichas]

duude

you are smoking the good stuff wildchild.

[kkrewell]

Not exactly the right comparison Michael

The Cell processor is a heterogeous processor because the PowerPC core and the SPEs have different instruction sets and capabilities. If you're right about Montalvo, this is an asymmetric processor, but all execute pretty much the same instruction set (x86). The challenge for asymmetry is having the operating system understand which cores to use for which application or power mode.

[johnedlt]

montalvo-catchy!

It's difficult to imagine any company who want to go head on with
Intel. However, the concept and development is interesting to say
the least. It sounds like a more solid competitor than the CPU
trovalds guy produced.

Keep giving Intel competitive pressure. We all want that!

[www.hdgreetings.com]

It's a real long shot

The problem is that it's not that hard to create a x86 compatible cpu and the market is huge. So a lot of companies have spent an incredible amount of money doing so.

However that huge market is so seductive it even convinces smart people to ignore the fact that running x86 software and running x86 software better than Intel are wildly different things.

It's a goal whose difficulty is similar to climbing Everest in short pants.

Maybe they'll at least end up with some decent IP like transmeta that will have some residual value.

[ideletejunkemail]

Root For The Underdog!

If the Giants can stymie the play stealing Patriots, then I say Montalvo can usurp Intel's grip on the industry! What's capitalism without competition? Just shut up and build the chip! Oh wait, you're already doing that!!! GO MONTALVO!!!!!

[Fil0403]

Good luck competing with Intel...

...you'll need it.