Discussion Future ARM Cortex + Neoverse µArchs Discussion

SarahKerrigan · Apr 19, 2024

FlameTail said:
Any more details?

TI C7000 - it's a 13-wide VLIW that looks kind of like one of the two slices of the C6000 with a large vector block on the side. Total of four scalar execution pipes, six vector pipes, and three shared (one branch and two load/store, with some limits on vector+vector load/store ops.) Some funky-chicken register access limitations, but C6000 had those too (partitioned register file with limited cross-partition ports.)

Kinda cool. I'm assuming it's a 512b instruction word, though TI isn't telling and I'd assume they'd look askance at trying to figure it out from compiler output.

Nothingness · Apr 19, 2024

FlameTail said:
Any more details?

It looks like TI latest C7x DSP is using a VLIW architecture that can encode 12 instructions in a single wide instruction. Each of this instruction can only go to one unit which limits what the core can do in a single cycle. But it does wonders with DSP workloads.

You can find some interesting details here:

Documentation is very sparse contrary to what TI released back in the C6x days. It's a pity, these chips are really fun to study.

But we're getting off topic here 😀

SarahKerrigan · Apr 19, 2024

Nothingness said:
It looks like TI latest C7x DSP is using a VLIW architecture that can encode 12 instructions in a single wide instruction. Each of this instruction can only go to one unit which limits what the core can do in a single cycle. But it does wonders with DSP workloads.

You can find some interesting details here:

Documentation is very sparse contrary to what TI released back in the C6x days. It's a pity, these chips are really fun to study.

But we're getting off topic here 😀

13-wide, no? The optimization guide seems to suggest such.

It's also fully 64b now and has an MMU. Theoretically TI could support full-fat Linux on it, though I doubt they will.

(And yeah, it's probably off topic and I don't want to derail further - was doing definition on a board design last week and it made me think of Flametail's comment.)

Nothingness · Apr 19, 2024

SarahKerrigan said:
13-wide, no? The optimization guide seems to suggest such.

The video shows a slide at 7:20 that says "can encode up to 12 instructions in parallel". I've taken that literally. But it might be a misunderstanding.

It might be an interesting experiment to play with the dev tools to reverse engineer that kind of information; the tools for the C6x were very verbose and many information could be understood just reading the assembly generated out of linear assembly. But life's too short.

SpudLobby · Apr 19, 2024

Nothingness said:
He posted information about the new core micro architecture here:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1780942603028164689
It seems it has about the same resources as Cortex-X3.

And some benchmark results:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1781207840851656801

Early results are available on Geekbench too: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/compare/5778239?baseline=5776855

Wait, so do they have multiple custom cores? And they’re all custom in this SoC?

I thought they had one custom and one or two cortex regulars. Interesting

SarahKerrigan · Apr 19, 2024

SpudLobby said:
Wait, so do they have multiple custom cores? And they’re all custom in this SoC?

I thought they had one custom and one or two cortex regulars. Interesting

One flavor of custom core AFAIK, at least in the 9000S. To the best of my knowledge it's 1+3 custom cores in two different configurations, and 4 Cortex-A510. But the core IDs being different is evidence I may be wrong. (Re: the 9010 specifically, I guess one possibility is that the 9010's big core is post-V120, but the V120 is retained for the middle cores!)

SpudLobby · Apr 19, 2024

Ugh so it’s still confusing lol. We know there’s one core they have that is theirs and custom, but not much more

Ghostsonplanets · Apr 21, 2024

Arm Mali GFX team gearing up for Windows on Arm support?:

"The Panfrost team received the source code and technical support for the latest architecture GPU provided by ARM as early as October last year, and is developing a mesa-vulkan driver with very good compatibility. OpenGL and GLES are already supported, and it is very efficient."

"The OpenGL performance of this driver has been tested on the Ubuntu 22.04 system, with more than 40 frames for group play on the Warcraft 3 map, and more than 20 frames for the ARM version of yuzu Tears of the Kingdom on Linux."
(tested on RK3588S and Dimensity 8100)

A Mesa Vulkan driver for Mali (Valhall 3 or later) could be coming in Q2 this year.

"The fully functional ARM Mesa driver will be officially released between April and June this year."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781991859675660342

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781992909220581483

https://x.com/negativeonehero/status/1781990129109958896

Ghostsonplanets · Apr 21, 2024

Also:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781636083303809534

Huawei might be gearing up to abandon Windows and use Arm Kirin series with Desktop Harmony on their laptops.

I wonder if it's in anticipation of a total ban of x86 processors exports and Windows license to Huawei. The US was pissed off about the latest Huawei laptop using Meteor Lake with AI capabilities.

Tup3x · Apr 21, 2024

Ghostsonplanets said:
Also:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781636083303809534

Huawei might be gearing up to abandon Windows and use Arm Kirin series with Desktop Harmony on their laptops.

I wonder if it's in anticipation of a total ban of x86 processors exports and Windows license to Huawei. The US was pissed off about the latest Huawei laptop using Meteor Lake with AI capabilities.

View attachment 97407

That looks more like desktop mode for phone (like Samsung DeX). Been a thing for years on Huawei phones.

Ghostsonplanets · Apr 21, 2024

Tup3x said:
That looks more like desktop mode for phone (like Samsung DeX). Been a thing for years on Huawei phones.

I actually thought the same. But this user is claiming it's a Desktop version of Harmony, following Harmony Next which is when Harmony will fully separate itself from Android.

I wouldn't doubt Huawei plans to bring Kirin and Harmony to Desktop due to fears of more US sanctions. A shame given I would wanted to see a WoA laptop with Kirin and Maleeon.

Shivansps · Apr 21, 2024

Ghostsonplanets said:
Arm Mali GFX team gearing up for Windows on Arm support?:

"The Panfrost team received the source code and technical support for the latest architecture GPU provided by ARM as early as October last year, and is developing a mesa-vulkan driver with very good compatibility. OpenGL and GLES are already supported, and it is very efficient."

"The OpenGL performance of this driver has been tested on the Ubuntu 22.04 system, with more than 40 frames for group play on the Warcraft 3 map, and more than 20 frames for the ARM version of yuzu Tears of the Kingdom on Linux."
(tested on RK3588S and Dimensity 8100)

A Mesa Vulkan driver for Mali (Valhall 3 or later) could be coming in Q2 this year.

"The fully functional ARM Mesa driver will be officially released between April and June this year."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781991859675660342

https://twitter.com/x/status/1781992909220581483

https://x.com/negativeonehero/status/1781990129109958896

Too bad that the Mali G610MP4 is nothing to write home about, it is faster than RPI5 and Intel UHD600 (Jasper Lake) and thats about it. I dont think it is faster than what the N100 has or a Vega 3. Not to mention Mendocino IGP.

SarahKerrigan · Apr 21, 2024

Ghostsonplanets said:
I actually thought the same. But this user is claiming it's a Desktop version of Harmony, following Harmony Next which is when Harmony will fully separate itself from Android.

I wouldn't doubt Huawei plans to bring Kirin and Harmony to Desktop due to fears of more US sanctions. A shame given I would wanted to see a WoA laptop with Kirin and Maleeon.

Have you seen any deets yet about what HarmonyOS Next actually is? It seemed like there were strong hints they were going to be building it around their LiteOS RTOS kernel (which I conceptually approve of) but very few details.

Tup3x · Apr 21, 2024

Ghostsonplanets said:
I actually thought the same. But this user is claiming it's a Desktop version of Harmony, following Harmony Next which is when Harmony will fully separate itself from Android.

I wouldn't doubt Huawei plans to bring Kirin and Harmony to Desktop due to fears of more US sanctions. A shame given I would wanted to see a WoA laptop with Kirin and Maleeon.

They likely are working on desktop support but I still think that image at least is from the desktop mode. Maybe they don't even plan to make "desktop version" and desktop mode on phone would eventually be identical to how Harmony OS would be on desktop machine. That would be nice - one OS, adaptable/responsive UI.

(Honestly, I'd just which that someone would create new open source OS that has nothing to do with unix. One OS for desktop and mobile.)

Nothingness · Apr 22, 2024

Another SBC with Cortex-A78: Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 Platform.

This has PCIe but only 6GB of RAM. This is targeted for embedded stuff.

igor_kavinski · Apr 22, 2024

Nothingness said:
Another SBC with Cortex-A78: Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 Platform.

This has PCIe but only 6GB of RAM. This is targeted for embedded stuff.

That's still enough for a decent enough tiny/slim possibly passively cooled console that can run Android games but with a game controller (and even KB/rodent support) on the big screen.

Why does Qualcomm seem to miss big opportunities? Let me guess. Overpaid fat executives.

FlameTail · Apr 22, 2024

Imagine an SBC with a flagship Android chip such as 8G3 or D9400

Shivansps · Apr 22, 2024

FlameTail said:
Imagine an SBC with a flagship Android chip such as 8G3 or D9400

It would be too expensive, an RK3588S goes from something like $80-$110 with 8GB of ram, the RK3588 around $100-$250, depending on ram.
In fact Radxa is the second one to come up with more or less sane prices on their new 5C SBC, first one was OrangePI.

An 8G3 and D9400 with 16GB of ram (8gb is pointless on such powerfull cpus) would be $300-$400...

FlameTail · Apr 22, 2024

Shivansps said:
It would be too expensive, an RK3588S goes from something like $80-$110 with 8GB of ram, the RK3588 around $100-$250, depending on ram.
In fact Radxa is the second one to come up with more or less sane prices on their new 5C SBC, first one was OrangePI.

An 8G3 and D9400 with 16GB of ram (8gb is pointless on such powerfull cpus) would be $300-$400...

FYI, these are the rumoured prices Qualcomm is charging OEMs, pet chipvfor their latest flagship Android SoCs :

8 Gen 2 = $160
8 Gen 3 = $200

The consolation is that it comes with the an industry leading modem built into it.

Shivansps · Apr 22, 2024

FlameTail said:
FYI, these are the rumoured prices Qualcomm is charging OEMs, pet chipvfor their latest flagship Android SoCs :

8 Gen 2 = $160
8 Gen 3 = $200

The consolation is that it comes with the an industry leading modem built into it.

The best we will be able to get in SBC format will likely come out of Rockchip, as Amlogic seems to be too happy with just the TVBox market(S905X5 is A510/Mali 310), AllWinner is slowly switching to RISC-V, they have a dual A78 coming up, but with an Imagination GPU. Qualcomm does not seem to be interested in SBC, nor does Mediatek, at most they will sell you SDKs and evaluation kits that are really expensive.

And the Raspberry PI foundation is just too slow to iterate, not to mention the RPI5 had to make important compromisses to release at that price.

Rockchip will have to replace the RK3588 eventually, maybe next year?

SarahKerrigan · Apr 22, 2024

Nothingness said:
Another SBC with Cortex-A78: Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 Platform.

This has PCIe but only 6GB of RAM. This is targeted for embedded stuff.

Looks very much like a 7s Gen 2.

Ghostsonplanets · Apr 27, 2024

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784144520109785356

Confirmed Huawei has a permanent Arm v9 license.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784159319019397134

More claims of Harmony Laptop + Kirin SoC (matching M2 MT it's claimed)

SarahKerrigan · Apr 27, 2024

Ghostsonplanets said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1784144520109785356

Confirmed Huawei has a permanent Arm v9 license.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784159319019397134

More claims of Harmony Laptop + Kirin SoC (matching M2 MT it's claimed)

Huh. What's a Lingxi?

soresu · Apr 27, 2024

Ghostsonplanets said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1784144520109785356

Confirmed Huawei has a permanent Arm v9 license.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784159319019397134

More claims of Harmony Laptop + Kirin SoC (matching M2 MT it's claimed)

No surprise there.

There is nothing to be gained from blocking Huawei or any Chinese silicon design firm from architectural licenses.

Especially when SVE2 (and possibly other v9-A specific feature?) adoption is so dire currently in the market, leaving devs little choice in testing code.

soresu · Apr 27, 2024

SarahKerrigan said:
Huh. What's a Lingxi?

Meaning "Dragon's Breath" - I suspect part threat to ARM in order to secure a v9-A license, and part security in case relations degrade still further.

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