If only Saruman had focused on MIMO Wi-Fi technology instead of orcs, and Sauron’s eye
had been turned toward the cellular marketplace instead of two little hobbits—then we
could simply call Qualcomm’s December acquisition of Airgo Networks “The Two Towers”
and be done with it.
While the business world might not be a fantasy, Qualcomm’s patent-based domination
of the marketplace’s CDMA standard is the ring that keeps the other industry players in line.
And with Airgo now under its wing, Qualcomm is prepping for an integrated future. Dubbed
Snapdragon, the company’s future chipset will support a number of wireless protocols,
including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi—the latter featuring Airgo’s 802.11n-based MIMO technology.
Qualcomm’s acquisition puts the company in the position of facing off against Intel-
backed WiMax technology, but it wouldn’t be The Two Towers without an awesome battle
scene, right?Qualcomm and Airgo’s Power Play
Cellular, meet Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi, cellularXXXXXXX 2007XXXXXXX 2007 MAMAXIMXIMUUMMPPCC 0000
If only Saruman had focused on MIMO Wi-Fi technology instead of orcs, and Sauron’s eyecould simply call Qualcomm’s December acquisition of Airgo Networks “The Two Towers”While the business world might not be a fantasy, Qualcomm’s patent-based domination
of the marketplace’s CDMA standard is the ring that keeps the other industry players in line.
And with Airgo now under its wing, Qualcomm is prepping for an integrated future. Dubbedincluding Bluetooth and Wi-Fi—the latter featuring Airgo’s 802.11n-based MIMO technology.without an awesome battleXXXXXXX 2007XXXXXXX 2007XXXXXXX 2007MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMPPPPPPPPPPPPPCCCCCCCC 000000
Hoping to gain ground in its race with Intel,
AMD said it is now successfully producing
its fi rst 65nm CPUs, something its competi-
tor has been doing since December 2005.
Process size describes the size of
certain parts on the CPU—a smaller size
generally yields both power-effi ciency sav-
ings and performance boosts. AMD’s 65nm
chips are considered optical shrinks with no
major feature changes from the company’s
90nm version. The fi rst 65nm consumer
chips will carry the Athlon 64 X2 badge.
The story is quite different on the server
front, where AMD has showed off quad-
core processors built on the new 65nm pro-
cess as well. Code-named Barcelona, the
quad Opterons occupy a single contiguous
die and are expected this spring or summer,
with a consumer version to follow.
AMD said it has also accelerated plans
to have a 45nm fab up and running by the
summer of 2008. Late last year, Intel said
it had completed its 45nm CPU, code-
named Penryn, and had sent it for testing
at the company’s new 45nm fab in Oregon.
AMD’s accelerated 45nm fab should put the
company only six to eight months behind
Intel, an improvement over the 12 months it
took to catch up to Intel’s 65nm CPUs.AMD Acts to Close Process Gap
The CPU maker announces its 65nm
processors and a new aggressive time-
line for 45nm chipsW
atch for exciting new developments in multicore
processors. There’s much more going on than
simply replicating identical processor cores in cookie-
cutter fashion on a chip. CPU architects are exploring
two different roads to future multicore processors:
homogeneous and heterogeneous designs.
Today’s multicore PC processors are strictly
homogeneous. Each chip replicates the same basic
processor core—twice for dual-core processors or
four times for quad-core processors. Homogeneous
multicore chips are usually easier to design because
the integration is straightforward. All the cores have
identical input/output interfaces and processing capa-
bilities, and they all run at the same clock frequency.
Within 10 years, I expect to see homogeneous
multicore PC processors with 12 or more identical
cores. Server processors might have even more. But
this road seems destined for a dead end if the dimin-
ishing returns of software parallelism fail to overcome
the rising complexity and power consumption of
higher integration.
In contrast, heterogeneous multicore processors
combine two or more different cores, often running
at different clock speeds. There aren’t any examples
among PC processors yet, but they are common in
embedded systems. For instance, some cell phones
have multicore chips that integrate a 32-bit general-
purpose processor (GPP) with a digital-signal proces-
sor (DSP) or perhaps a GPP configured as a DSP. The
GPP runs the application software and user-interface
code, while the DSP handles the baseband process-
ing for wireless communications.
Heterogeneous multicore designs show more
long-term promise. AMD is already moving in this
direction by acquiring ATI and launching its Fusion
project to integrate graphics cores into PC processors
by late 2008 or 2009.
In the future, I expect to see much more hetero-
geneity. PC processors may have multiple cores for
decoding digital audio and video, running the network-
software stack, managing security functions, and
performing other specialized tasks. There’s no need
to dedicate large, complex general-purpose cores to
those narrow jobs. Some cores will be large, some will
be small, and some will run at different clock speeds.
Some cores may not be x86 compatible.
Another avenue for exploration is multithread-
ing—on a scale much greater than Intel’s simple
two-way HyperThreading, which is absent from most
of Intel’s latest processors. But that’s a topic for
another column.Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor for Byte magazine
and is now an analyst for Microprocessor Report.Multicore CPUs:
Homogenous vs.
Heterogeneous
FAST FORWARD
TOM
HALFHILLFEBRUARY 2007 MAXIMUMPC 09
News feeds have never looked so inter-
esting. Microsoft’s UniveRSS RSS reader
( http://tinyurl.com/yc8mjq ) displays feeds on
3D cubes fl oating in space. The closer a
cube is, the more recent its content. Click
the cube to see a list of stories, then click
a story to read it. The Vista-only app is still
young, and kind of a system hog, but it
looks cool and might actually become use-
ful with further development.Meet UniveRSS—the 3D RSS Reader