Re: cellphone-sized X86 PC motherboard potential OpenMoko platform?
On Sunday 10 June 2007 22:50, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: And IMHO there is only a very weak relation between a processor's instruction set and its power consumption. Not direct, but several strong points can arise from using a specific instruction set (presuming compatibility is one of the reasons you are making such a choice). The obvious are Thumb(2), the less obvious are the FPU/SSE/etc stuff. Much of the x86 code that the to-be developer wishes to be compatible with has been written with the preconception of a fairly powerful FPU (skype, voice processing, multimedia). Now, you could emulate these (as do many of the existing low-power x86 solutions, this is not exactly new, there are older generation x86 chips that need very little power), but it would be crippling performance. In the end, if you want to keep a comparable x86 performance without going to a several GHz clock, you would pretty much end up with a regular x86 processor optimized for consumption, which is what much of the VIA C series are. They try to be x86 consuming less power, and not being an ARM competitor which speaks x86, which many expect here. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: cellphone-sized X86 PC motherboard potential OpenMoko platform?
When you look at the board you see that there is not much space left. It seems there's no GSM, no WiFi, no other chip already. i've heard talk elsewhere of a built in cdma module. that's an odd choice considering the number of operators switching to gsm, but i would assume via will change/add to this down the track And as I always say: The only reason for using x86 in small and embedded devices is running Windows. I really don't want to have Windows on my phone. No CE/Mobile, exceptionally no XP/Vista. Do you? :) hell no, i ditched win long since. but some people will and there are a number of closed pieces of software only available for x86. flash is one of them, shockwave another. maybe skype, i'm not sure what that runs on add in things like a half decent fpu (compared to arm anyway) and the platform starts to approach desktop functionality for all sorts of applications. as the oqo has partly shown, there's no reason a mobile (pc/phone) can't be a desktop as well with the addition of a proper qwerty kb and monitor when the user gets to the office this is an awesome development, i'm in 2 minds myself whether to buy a pico itx or wait for this next year ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: cellphone-sized X86 PC motherboard potential OpenMoko platform?
That would explain why Intel sold XScale :) IHMO there is a direct relation between the instruction set and the power consumption: The more complex a processor is the more power it needs. Let's explain it the easy (and not fully correct) way: When you want to see the complexity of a microprocessor in numbers you can take the number of transistors. ARM9 Chips are under 10 million, VIA C7 about 25 million, Intel Core2Duo about 300 million, IBM Power6 800 million. This all are modern (except the ARM) and powerful processors and the more transistors they have, the more power they need. Of course there are chips with less transistors needing much more power, there are several reasons for this. But as long x86 is more complex than other architectures it will need more power. Well, I'm definately not a expert, if one reads this, maybe he can explain :) P.S. Current XScale are still producesd in 180nm, Intel is down to 65/35nm. The leakage current may be higher in ARM/XScale devices than it could (or should) be. 2007/6/10, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller [EMAIL PROTECTED]: So I still see no reason for having a energy comsuming x86-monster in my phone. :) If I read all the rumours around iPhone and new UMPC platforms correctly, Intel is working heavily on lowest power versions of x86- Instruction set compatible CPUs. And IMHO there is only a very weak relation between a processor's instruction set and its power consumption. Nikolaus Schaller ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: cellphone-sized X86 PC motherboard potential OpenMoko platform?
On Sunday 10 June 2007 23:10:56 Thomas Gstädtner wrote: ARM9 Chips are under 10 million, VIA C7 about 25 million, Intel Core2Duo about 300 million, IBM Power6 800 million. ARM9 is not comparable to C7 (C3 might be somewhere around that) which is not in the same league as Core2 which again is in a different league than Power6. Heck, the Core2 has 4MB Cache and TWO CPU in there. And Power6 has giant amounts of cache. pgp4ko1ZJ7zqZ.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: cellphone-sized X86 PC motherboard potential OpenMoko platform?
Am 10.06.2007 um 23:10 schrieb Thomas Gstädtner: That would explain why Intel sold XScale :) Exactly :) IHMO there is a direct relation between the instruction set and the power consumption: The more complex a processor is the more power it needs. Yes. Let's explain it the easy (and not fully correct) way: When you want to see the complexity of a microprocessor in numbers you can take the number of transistors. ARM9 Chips are under 10 million, VIA C7 about 25 million, Intel Core2Duo about 300 million, IBM Power6 800 million. But keep in your calculation that most of these transistors are used for on-chip caches and internal parallelism (pipelining). You can have a processor that executes the same code (i.e. same instruction set!) at a lower speed with much less transistors. Wikipedia tells that the original 8086 did have just 29.000 transistors and the 8087 FPU did have 45.000. So, I would assume that the instruction set extensions since the 8086 area (i.e. 32 bit, etc.) does not make up more that 1 Mio transistors out of the 300 millons. So, by sacrificing speed, leaving out on-chip-caches etc. and most importantly using a much lower clock rate can reduce power consumption drastically. This all are modern (except the ARM) and powerful processors and the more transistors they have, the more power they need. Of course there are chips with less transistors needing much more power, there are several reasons for this. But as long x86 is more complex than other architectures it will need more power. Well, I'm definately not a expert, if one reads this, maybe he can explain :) P.S. Current XScale are still producesd in 180nm, Intel is down to 65/35nm. The leakage current may be higher in ARM/XScale devices than it could (or should) be. From chip design courses (it is long time ago) I remember that most of a CMOS power consumption comes from charging/discharging the gates of the transistors (i.e. small capacitors). The lower the clock frequency and the smaller the capcity (which depends on the dimensions of the transistors, i.e. the 90/60/45nm technology) the lower the power consumption. So, I think there are enough tricks to make low power x86 compatible processors... Nikolaus Schaller ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: cellphone-sized X86 PC motherboard potential OpenMoko platform?
There is currently not an ARM Linux library for Skype. On Jun 10, 2007, at 1:37 PM, Thomas Gstädtner wrote: There are some things that are not true here. True is, that x86 is on the bottom of popularity, because of the disadvantages. Also it's true, that linux runs on x86. Linux's also running on SPARC - but nobody would use SPARC in a phone, so that is simply no reason for using x86. But it is not true, that skype only runs on x86. There is skype for Win Mobile devices [1] (I haven't ever seen a win mobile device using x86) which mainly are ARM/XScale based. Skype is also working on getting their software running on Symbian (Series60) - a platform only used on ARM. It is also false that flash/shockwave only runs on x86. My Nokia 7710 (ARM9 based) has opera mobile with flash-plugin and it works perfectly. The Nokia 770/N800 - also ARM based - has a flash-player as well. So I still see no reason for having a energy comsuming x86-monster in my phone. :) [1] http://www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skype/mobile/ 2007/6/10, Matthew S. Hamrick [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Before we run off and predict that the sky is falling, let's consider a couple of things: 1. This is a prototype. This is not a product. This is a system that demonstrates how small you can make a device with the new C7-S processors. Also... take a look at how many discrete components are on the board. Now open up any of your mobile electronics and compare. It's doesn't completely destroy your BOM cost to have these components, but it does add a bit of manufacturing cost. Adding $12 to the cost of the phone is pretty much a deal-killer for mobile phones, but not for smart phones and mobile terminals. 2. No. the only reason for an x86 cell phone is not to run windows. ARM is very popular for WinCE devices. Less popular is MIPS. And somewhere at the bottom of the popularity scale is x86. But... it is there. There's also an operating system called Linux that's been known to run on x86 devices. And... if you were wanting to build a mobile phone with the Skype libraries installed, right now, your only option is x86. 3. CDMA. I agree, it is odd that CDMA would be their first choice. Perhaps they were working closely with a customer that had a specific requirement for CDMA, or maybe they engineer they tasked with the job of building this thing was more familiar with CDMA. But the major manufacturers like Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, etc. all make both GSM and CDMA versions of their phones. I sorta got used to companies releasing GSM phones first, as there's a larger market. But CDMA is definitely an important player in China, South Korea and the US. So my guess is... somewhere out there in China is a group that wants to make a CDMA2000 phone for sale in the domestic market. They're trying to build a smart-phone or a mobile terminal like the blackberry or Treo. Market penetration of Linux phones in China is much better than it is here in the states or Europe. So maybe they're interested in using an x86-only library on a mobile device. My guess is Skype. Furthermore, my guess is they approached Via with the idea of using one of their processors. Via referred them to Epia who began designing a demo board. The deal fell through and now Via needs to find an application for these processors, so publicizing this prototype is a way of getting people to think about x86 embedded. IMHO, the only reason you would want to have an x86 based processor like the C7-S (which is still an order of magnitude worse in power consumption than ARM processors) is to run x86 specific code. So yeah... that could be XP/embedded, but it could also be some x86 specific Linux library. Just my $0.02. -Cheers -Matt H. On Jun 10, 2007, at 12:16 PM, Robin Paulson wrote: When you look at the board you see that there is not much space left. It seems there's no GSM, no WiFi, no other chip already. i've heard talk elsewhere of a built in cdma module. that's an odd choice considering the number of operators switching to gsm, but i would assume via will change/add to this down the track And as I always say: The only reason for using x86 in small and embedded devices is running Windows. I really don't want to have Windows on my phone. No CE/Mobile, exceptionally no XP/Vista. Do you? :) hell no, i ditched win long since. but some people will and there are a number of closed pieces of software only available for x86. flash is one of them, shockwave another. maybe skype, i'm not sure what that runs on add in things like a half decent fpu (compared to arm anyway) and the platform starts to approach desktop functionality for all sorts of applications. as the oqo has partly shown, there's no reason a mobile (pc/phone) can't be a desktop as well with the addition of a proper qwerty kb and monitor when the user gets to the office this is an awesome development, i'm in 2 minds myself whether to buy a pico itx or wait for this next year
