[Info-vax] [OT] Single core MCUs/single threaded workloads, was: Re: Linux support

[David Froble]

Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2014-02-01, David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>> johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk wrote:
>>> Not disagreeing in general but want to add a couple of comments:
>>>
>>> "Need a bit more [performance], add a few more cores onto the chip." 
>>>
>>> Works great for marketing, how well does it work for typical volume-market
>>> single-threaded workloads on desktops or mobile devices? Readers here know
>>> the answer...
>> Everyone stopped making single core chips years ago.  I once made the 
>> comment that AMD's San Deigo chip at 90 nm was basically the fastest 
>> single core CPU that would be manufactured.  Got jumped on by a few 
>> people, but, this was AFTER both Intel and AMD stated that all future 
>> production would be multi-core.  You may purchase a "single core" chip, 
>> but that's because for mfg or marketing reasons some of the cores are 
>> not operational.  So, I stand by my claim.
>>
> 
> Sorry David, but I suspect the single core Cortex-A8 and ARM9 boards
> I can see as well as the Cortex-M4 boards buried somewhere across the
> room might disagree with you. :-)

I don't have a clue ....

But, I was talking mainly about Intel, AMD, and x86.  Once the shrinks 
got small enough, it probably became wasteful to not put more than one 
core on a chip.

> You seem to only be focusing on the desktop PC market, but that's a
> major mistake. There is a _massive_ embedded market for boards and
> the MCUs on those boards which have 1/10 to 1/100 to 1/1000 of the
> processing power and memory resources you are thinking of when you
> talk of multi-GHz processors and gigabytes of RAM.

Well, since we're somewhat concerned with VMS, and it was the volume of 
the desktop that pretty much screwed Alpha, and IA-64, focusing on the 
desktop seems to be a bit reasonable.

> Also, John said single-threaded, not single core. :-) Not all desktop
> workloads can take real advantage of multiple cores.
> 
> Simon.
>