[Info-vax] Chinese Alpha?

[John Wallace]

On Apr 30, 12:45 pm, Paul Sture <p... at sture.ch> wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:11:08 +0000, glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:
> > JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam... 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?  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."
>
> --
> Paul Sture

21064 started life at around 150W. Xeons have been up there too,
although currently they're a little bit less. Then you need to add all
the Northbridge/Southbridge or similar gubbins traditionally
associated with an x86 CPU.