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tw · 02-11-2008, 08:13 PM

The TI chip consumes less power. Easily understood by any communication major who did not understand details in that simplified press release. Naive computer assemblers are always hyping more fans. Therefore a chip that uses less power is a major accomplishment? This TI technology will appear in their MSP430 series microprocessors. Power decreased by making transistors smaller to operate at lower voltages, and locating a DC to DC converter on the chip. Well, most all chips contain a DC to DC converter (so that a negative voltage supply is not required - the difference between Intel's 8085 and Zilog's Z-80). Smaller transistors mean operating at lower voltages. Nothing new. Earliest Intel Pentiums did same; but with the DC to DC converter on the motherboard. Pentiums are so much larger and run so much faster that the converter must be separate. TI simply made a slower chip with same small transistors so that another DC to DC converter could be moved off motherboard and onto IC.

A nice little improvement of same significance was announced by Intel. A 'longest to execute' instruction is division. Intel recently improved division to reduce execution time by one half. A significant accomplishment just like the TI announcement.

Meanwhile, that communication major would not appreciated major industry changes occurring at the same conference. Generations ago, non-volatile memory use principles discovered in the early 1800s. 40 years ago, Intel pioneered static memory (21xx series), non-volatile memory (27xx and 28xx series), and microprocessors (80xx series). Radical changes were announced in memory. Conventional memory was about storing electrical charges. STMicroelectronics and Intel have finally started shipping samples of phase change (ovonic unified) memory. Data stored by changing structure of materials. Freescale and NEC have started shipping magnetic memories. NEC has set a new speed record at 250 MHz for 1 Mbit memory. Texas Instrument and others are shipping ferromagnetic memories that do in semiconductors what was once done by Space Shuttle's iron core memories.

Researchers in Eindhoven Netherlands set a new 780 bits / second speed record for a 64 bit RFID chip at a distance of 10 cm.

MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) technology is the future in non-America digital TV, Wi-Fi (802.11N), WiMaxLTE, UWB radios, and 4G cell phones. Multiple transmitters and receivers on separate channels provide faster and more reliable data rates compared to using channels on sub-carriers. Another major change previewed this week. Not grasped by communication majors that only saw 'low power' in a TI product. Only saw what the reporter could understand.

Some familiar standards are 802.3 (ethernet networking) and 802.11 (WiFi). The latest standard is 802.15.6 - body area networking. IOW McCoy's 'sick bay' bed is obsoleted by electronics embedded in a body. Simply enter a room to be medically diagnosed? Networking identifies an epileptic seizure before the seizure starts.

What will be the new Moore's law? A controversy. Multicore processing is the future. "I would like to call it a corollary of Moore's Law that the number of cores will double every 18 month", according to Anant Agarwal of Tilera Corp that ships a 64 core processor. He also predicts in 2017, an embedded processor will have 4096 cores. That's 4096 computer processors in one chip. Rich Hetherington of Sun believes it will only be 32 to 128 processors by 2018 where each multicore will process 500 to 1000 threads. IBM's McCredie has a more traditional belief, "Today's data centers run a big pile of goofy apps, where many people don't even know where their source code is anymore. Google is an exception. We still have discussions about single threaded apps with customers who may run these applications forever."

Whereas Moore's Law was the benchmark for hardware innovation, software has no such benchmark. Transmeta founder Dave Ditzel discusses his experience in Sun Microsystems. He describes designing Sun's first 64 bit CPU that waited almost a decade before a 64 bit Operating System was finally developed.

Industry earthquake changes in memory and wireless communication make that low power TI chip just another innovation. Who would appreciate so many other and more significant announcements at the same ISSCC? A communication major would only understood "Less Power" (Tim Allen?). Multicore programming is a looming 800 pound industry gorilla that all major semiconductors manufacturers are grappling with because software programmers just don't yet grasp the technology - multicore processors.

02-11-2008, 08:13 PM	#2
tw Read? I only know how to write. Join Date: Jan 2001 Posts: 11,933	The TI chip consumes less power. Easily understood by any communication major who did not understand details in that simplified press release. Naive computer assemblers are always hyping more fans. Therefore a chip that uses less power is a major accomplishment? This TI technology will appear in their MSP430 series microprocessors. Power decreased by making transistors smaller to operate at lower voltages, and locating a DC to DC converter on the chip. Well, most all chips contain a DC to DC converter (so that a negative voltage supply is not required - the difference between Intel's 8085 and Zilog's Z-80). Smaller transistors mean operating at lower voltages. Nothing new. Earliest Intel Pentiums did same; but with the DC to DC converter on the motherboard. Pentiums are so much larger and run so much faster that the converter must be separate. TI simply made a slower chip with same small transistors so that another DC to DC converter could be moved off motherboard and onto IC. A nice little improvement of same significance was announced by Intel. A 'longest to execute' instruction is division. Intel recently improved division to reduce execution time by one half. A significant accomplishment just like the TI announcement. Meanwhile, that communication major would not appreciated major industry changes occurring at the same conference. Generations ago, non-volatile memory use principles discovered in the early 1800s. 40 years ago, Intel pioneered static memory (21xx series), non-volatile memory (27xx and 28xx series), and microprocessors (80xx series). Radical changes were announced in memory. Conventional memory was about storing electrical charges. STMicroelectronics and Intel have finally started shipping samples of phase change (ovonic unified) memory. Data stored by changing structure of materials. Freescale and NEC have started shipping magnetic memories. NEC has set a new speed record at 250 MHz for 1 Mbit memory. Texas Instrument and others are shipping ferromagnetic memories that do in semiconductors what was once done by Space Shuttle's iron core memories. Researchers in Eindhoven Netherlands set a new 780 bits / second speed record for a 64 bit RFID chip at a distance of 10 cm. MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) technology is the future in non-America digital TV, Wi-Fi (802.11N), WiMaxLTE, UWB radios, and 4G cell phones. Multiple transmitters and receivers on separate channels provide faster and more reliable data rates compared to using channels on sub-carriers. Another major change previewed this week. Not grasped by communication majors that only saw 'low power' in a TI product. Only saw what the reporter could understand. Some familiar standards are 802.3 (ethernet networking) and 802.11 (WiFi). The latest standard is 802.15.6 - body area networking. IOW McCoy's 'sick bay' bed is obsoleted by electronics embedded in a body. Simply enter a room to be medically diagnosed? Networking identifies an epileptic seizure before the seizure starts. What will be the new Moore's law? A controversy. Multicore processing is the future. "I would like to call it a corollary of Moore's Law that the number of cores will double every 18 month", according to Anant Agarwal of Tilera Corp that ships a 64 core processor. He also predicts in 2017, an embedded processor will have 4096 cores. That's 4096 computer processors in one chip. Rich Hetherington of Sun believes it will only be 32 to 128 processors by 2018 where each multicore will process 500 to 1000 threads. IBM's McCredie has a more traditional belief, "Today's data centers run a big pile of goofy apps, where many people don't even know where their source code is anymore. Google is an exception. We still have discussions about single threaded apps with customers who may run these applications forever." Whereas Moore's Law was the benchmark for hardware innovation, software has no such benchmark. Transmeta founder Dave Ditzel discusses his experience in Sun Microsystems. He describes designing Sun's first 64 bit CPU that waited almost a decade before a 64 bit Operating System was finally developed. Industry earthquake changes in memory and wireless communication make that low power TI chip just another innovation. Who would appreciate so many other and more significant announcements at the same ISSCC? A communication major would only understood "Less Power" (Tim Allen?). Multicore programming is a looming 800 pound industry gorilla that all major semiconductors manufacturers are grappling with because software programmers just don't yet grasp the technology - multicore processors.