News AMD announces the HSA Foundation

AMD has announced the HSA Foundation, in partnership with ARM, TI, Imagination and others.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/06/13/amd-announces-hsa-foundation/1

 

I wish they would just bloody stick to one thing!

 

I'm glad they are exploring new things, especially in this very competitive market. Its pretty much their only option to keep changing the game.

 

I meant the naming convention rather than the market space just to be clear!

 

This is why I am such a huge AMD fanboy!

 

Very interesting. I am excited to see what this means in practice.

 

Well, when you say "a" ARM core, that could also mean there are other cores that are x86 based. What would be amazing to me is if AMD managed to create a middle-ground CPU that could run ARM, x86, and x86-64 tasks all in one. AMD got x86-64 popular, it wouldn't surprise me if they did x86-64-ARM too. The interesting idea with this is the ARM core could run low-power and background processes, essentially shutting off the x86 based cores, and when anything demanding comes up, it switches to the x86 cores. Much like nvidia's optimus.


Anyways, its a shame intel has to be so greedy because if they came up with this idea and was as open-armed (no pun intended, seriously) to other companies as AMD, then maybe intel could actually get away with one of their lawsuits of anticompetition. i just don't understand the motive of intel and MS - they have so much potential to be companies that people can be proud of supporting while still maintaining the most success, but instead they're complete assholes and rub their success in everyone's faces. IBM is a huge and successful company but they're almost polar opposites of intel and MS.

 

I'll admit intel does a lot for the good of others whether they profit or not, and every once in a while they'll team up with a company instead of buying it out (usually if the company has something they want/need but don't feel like expanding their business into). But there's been plenty of proof of anticompetition, and being anticompetitive can only be deduced to greed. I don't blame intel for not wanting to join with the HSA foundation, but what I'm saying is they could have easily done something like this themselves a while ago.

I'd like to point out AMD isn't the only company intel doesn't get along with. They're not too fond of nvidia either. However, I'd say there are more companies that don't get along with intel than the other way around. Unlike MS, intel doesn't really have that many rivals, for a few reasons. They can usually compete with anyone out there. If they can't compete, they buy out the company. If they can't buy out the company due to antitrust issues (lets face it, money isn't the problem), they do what they can to make the other company look worse, or they limit the competitors' options in some manner. When they're not allowed to do any of that, they advertise and start sponsoring things.

 

Intel vs Nvidia has a long history. for a while they where working together, back before Intel had GPU parts in their CPUs. Intel gained all their GPU knowledge from this partnership then they brought out the iCore CPUs and refused to let Nvida produce motherboards for Intel iCore CPUs.......

Because Nvidia's Motherboard license did not include CPUs with integrated Clock generators. (which didn't exist before iCore)

Hence Intel sued Nvidia when Nvidia tried to produce motherboards for iCore CPU's.

 

Apparently, the ARM core is to be used as a competitor to Intel's TXT. That is, a 'Secure World' environment that is not user-accessible. Segregated parts of RAM and storage could, for example, hold crypto keys to be processed by the ARM core, which then hands the return off to the x86 cores. Doing this can be used to keep secure things out of userspace entirely. At least, until it gets cracked.

What's very interesting is AMD plans to have it across their range within the next year or two. Intel's TXT and vPRO are typically only unlocked in the high-end platforms, and are aimed at secure enterprise environments.

But, give devs access to that core, too - let me sleep my PC, while the ARM core remains active and runs a BT client, for example. Something similar to the Tegra 3 processor - 1 small, low power core for very light tasks, but hand it off to the monster 4 or 6 core beast when I start up a game or the like. Of course, the OS won't be ready for such a thing until Windows 10 if I'm lucky, but I like to dream.