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bookemdano writes "Intel announces first stacked processor for their XScale line. No core speed increases but the smaller sizes helps with power, overall unit size, and adding additional pieces like WiFi and color screens to smart phones and MP3 players. But speed increases are in the future."
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I work with the XScale processor platform every day and it is simply disappointingly slow. A cheaper and faster choice for a processor would be something like the x86 Geode from National Semi which runs rings around the XScale for a fraction of the cost. Too bad National Semi is selling off their Geode platform division now.
I agree. I have done some development for Pocket PCs. Our testing shows that the new 400 MHz XScale Compaq iPaq are about 2x slower than the old 206 MHz Strongarm Compaq iPaqs! So the XScale processors are effectively 4x slower per MHz compared to the old Strongarm processors. Needless to say, customers blame me when my code runs 2x slower on their new "twice as fast" Pocket PC.
We've got these Lubbock reference boards sitting around the lab now. When we first fired them up we thought they were broken. One excuse I've heard is that the MS compilers are not good, but still you'd expect that the same ARMV4I (SA1100 and XScale) code would execute faster on the newer XScale chip than on the older SA.
I don't know if this is a dead end product for Intel, but they better start putting out some compilers that take advantage of the XScale improvements or there won't be many customers lef
Intel: The Microsoft Strongarm compiler is old and does not have XScale optimizations. You need a newer compiler with XScale optimizations.
Me: Where can I download it? Can you send me a CD?
Intel: Sorry, we don't have any compilers with XScale optimizations. Better luck next time!
Eventually, Intel gave us a beta XScale compiler, but even with all optmiziations turned on, it produced code LARGER and SLOWER than Microsoft's Strongarm compiler. And the XScale compiler seemed to
We'll probably have to bite the bullet and readapt the kit at some point. There's going to be quite a few slow XScale-based devices out there for a while though.
I've been working with the AMD Alchemy family chips. In our particular situation, it ran faster, used less power, and was priced much lower than the XScale chips that we considered.
It is a wonderful little piece of silicon with lots of integrated peripherals, low power, and great performance. It is built around a MIPS architecture processor core.
Alchemy's definitely got a good piece of hardware, but the demand we've seen for the platform has been pretty minimal.
The breakdown we've seen for platforms is something like 60% XScale, 35% x86, 4% Alchemy, 1% other (SHx, etc). The market for Alchemy just isn't big enough to make it worth our while to develop a solution for Alchemy. However, this does mean that an enterprising small company could fill that niche very nicely.
I cant see how stacking chips to make them smaller is going to impact the consumers (very much). They aren't lower power, faster or in any way what customers wanted. They are simply cheaper to produce and give better profit margines. Considering the ARM's are tiny I can't see how they can charge 20-40$ for them after the stacking.
As an embedded engineer (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:As an embedded engineer (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree. I have done some development for Pocket PCs. Our testing shows that the new 400 MHz XScale Compaq iPaq are about 2x slower than the old 206 MHz Strongarm Compaq iPaqs! So the XScale processors are effectively 4x slower per MHz compared to the old Strongarm processors. Needless to say, customers blame me when my code runs 2x slower on their new "twice as fast" Pocket PC.
Re:As an embedded engineer (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know if this is a dead end product for Intel, but they better start putting out some compilers that take advantage of the XScale improvements or there won't be many customers lef
Re:As an embedded engineer (Score:2)
Intel told us the same story:
Intel: The Microsoft Strongarm compiler is old and does not have XScale optimizations. You need a newer compiler with XScale optimizations.
Me: Where can I download it? Can you send me a CD?
Intel: Sorry, we don't have any compilers with XScale optimizations. Better luck next time!
Eventually, Intel gave us a beta XScale compiler, but even with all optmiziations turned on, it produced code LARGER and SLOWER than Microsoft's Strongarm compiler. And the XScale compiler seemed to
Re:As an embedded engineer (Score:2)
Re:XScale errata (Score:1)
Stacked chips? (Score:1)
Another Xscale alternative (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a wonderful little piece of silicon with lots of integrated peripherals, low power, and great performance. It is built around a MIPS architecture processor core.
Linux-MIPS runs great on this chip.
Check them out. [amd.com]
Re:Another Xscale alternative (Score:1)
The breakdown we've seen for platforms is something like 60% XScale, 35% x86, 4% Alchemy, 1% other (SHx, etc). The market for Alchemy just isn't big enough to make it worth our while to develop a solution for Alchemy. However, this does mean that an enterprising small company could fill that niche very nicely.
And this is great because... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And this is great because... (Score:2)