[Info-vax] Chinese Alpha?

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Paul Sture wrote 2012-04-30 13:45:
> On Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:11:08 +0000, glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:
>
>> JF Mezei<jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca>  wrote:
>>
>> (snip)
>>> Assuming that Samsung has full access to the Alpha IP, would this be of
>>> use to them when implementing their ARM chips, or would the
>>> designs/technilogies/ideas of Alpha apply only to work at a lower
>>> level, done by ARM in england and and thus have no value to the
>>> "packaging" done by Samsung ?
>>
>> Alpha is an ISA (instruction set architecture) originally implemented
>> about 20 years ago. The ISA may be applicable today, but the details of
>> the implementations likely aren't.
>>
>> As far as I know, there is no reason Alpha couldn't be implemented in
>> current technology, and be successful in the market.
>>
>> Now, it might be that some details of old Alpha implementations could be
>> useful in new designs, but most of the lower level (gate level) ideas,
>> as far as I know, wouldn't.
>
> Wasn't Alpha quite power hungry?

First released Alpha processorn was built using a 750 nm process.
The volume models (EV5/EV6) used a 500 or 350 nm process.
The last sold (EV7/EV7z) used 180 nm
The canceled EV78/EV79/EV8 would have used 130 or 125 nm.

Latest Xeon (and IA64 Poulson) uses/will use a 32 nm process.

125 => 32 nm = aprox *30* times less chip area.

Yes, the Alpha chips was rather power hungry, but one can not
compare 10 yers old technology with todays chip processes.
It's amazing what speed the Alphas run at on those processes...

Jan-Erik.





> And isn't that ARM's advantage over
> Intel?
>
> http://buswk.co/IOdN51
>
> "Until recent years, Intel (Intel) focused its efforts on what’s called
> the “clock speed” of CPUs, rapidly increasing the performance of computer
> chips to handle desktop operating systems and processor-intensive
> applications better. Less thought was given to reducing the power
> consumption requirements of these chips.
>
> RAMPING UP PERFORMANCE
>
> Contrast that with chips built on the ARM architecture, which is licensed
> to chipmakers such as Nvidia, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Freescale, and
> a host of others. Instead of the “top down” strategy of boosting
> performance first and focusing on power requirements second, ARM chips
> have used a “bottom up” approach. Early ARM chips weren’t capable of
> running complex software but could run for days between charges. Once the
> power requirements of the silicon were effectively managed, ARM chips
> began to ramp up performance, most recently with quad-core chips that can
> offer 16 hours of high-definition playback on a tablet."
>
>