Re: PA-Semi

In article <1130282261.517707.241570@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Rupert Pigott <darkboong@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Anyone else somewhat gobsmacked by the SPECfp/Watt *per socket*
>that the Inquirer claims for the PA Semi chip ? Specifically ~2000
>SPECfp per core, two cores per chip. PA Semi claim 5-13W power
>consumption for a chip. That appears to include a whole chunk of
>stuff like PCIe and 10GigE ports too...

Assuming they actually execute well on their development
plan (a big assumption), will these numbers be impressive at
production relative to competitors at the same time? They
won't even sample until Q306:

http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=172303390

"The first implementation of the companys architecture, a dual-core
version, is expected to sample in the third calendar quarter of 2006,
with single-core and quad-core versions due in early and late 2007,
respectively, and an eight-core version planned for 2008. However,
the company did not say what manufacturing process technology the
company is targeting and how much of the performance increase is
expected to come from moving down the miniaturization roadmap, a
strategy open to rival processor vendors."

>
>Cigarette packet math indicates that is roughly a factor of 10
>improvement over the current high-end cores as far as FLOPS/Watts
>goes. Pretty bold claims, it will be interesting to see what the
>silicon actually does. If it comes up to scratch I wouldn't be
>surprised to see those things getting slotted into a BG/L chassis.
>
>Anyone smelling rats or are you guys quiet because you're checking
>your grapevines ? :)
>
>Cheers,
>Rupert
>


.

Relevant Pages

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