

ARM-Based Servers Expected by 2011 - sorbits
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Server-CPU-Xeon-Opteron-ARM,10302.html#xtor=RSS-181

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dman
I am a huge ARM fan (am currently building a handheld based on the nvidia
tegra developer devkit). However I feel sceptical that ARM will go anywhere on
servers. Just like VIA didnt go anywhere when it was the only mainstream SOC
around, just like ARM didnt go anywhere in netbooks and just like AMD has yes
to penetrate significant market share inspite having a huge performance lead
for ~2 years in the pentium 4 days. Intel is the big gorilla in the room and
are very adept at coming up with solutions that get 80% of the way there (like
atom) whenever a new market niche opens up. Then they use their marketing
muscle to make sure that the new niche doesnt get exploited by an upcoming
competitor. So ARM might make the best performance/watt chips out there, but
if they dont have the muscle to get design wins and ship in actual servers
then sadly they will continue to remain a fringe player in the server market.

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ippisl
I think you start to see ARM replacing intel. in some sense IPAD is replacing
some netbooks.

ARM's biggest problem was windows on the netbook. usally when disruption
happens , it replaces a whole value chain with another. that's what's the IPAD
is doing, and chrome os might do.

So you would have the apple's and google's marketing machines (and other big
companies around the ARM architecture), fighting against intel's. that's a
more fair fight than intel VS amd.

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rbanffy
Now we all pray Apple doesn't buy ARM

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cstuder
Imagine servers refusing to serve flash content.

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stilist
Do you honestly see this as a realistic policy?

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jacquesm
Given the last couple of weeks?

Unfortunately, yes, it might happen. Or it may be declared to be against the
terms of service or something stupid like that.

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protomyth
I get this for utility servers, but can ARM chips address more than 4GB of
memory? I currently use a couple of ITX Via boards for some items (e.g.
gateway, name server), but I am wondering how far I could go with ARM.

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Avshalom
According to wikipedia the ARM11 chips have "64 bit data paths" and toshiba
seems to have a chip they claim has

# Synthesizable high-performance 64 bit RISC architecture (ARMv6)

# 64 bit ARM® Instruction Set

<http://www.toshiba-components.com/ASIC/ARM1176JZF-S.htm>

though thats pretty much the only mention a quick search coughs up, so I
wouldn't call it definitive, for one thing I don't know if the 1176 is in
production of not.

edit: the ARM website doesn't seem to mention 64 bit anywhere either so
toshiba may be engaging in a rather creative definition of 64bit.

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timthorn
This is probably confusing the (64-bit data capable) NEON SIMD unit with the
core ARM ISA.

The 1176 has been in production for several years now, but is a 32-bit part.

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ableal
_Can ARM stand up against rivals Intel and AMD in the server market?_

Wrong question. If they're pushing into servers, I'd expect ARM to worry more
about two things:

\- Sun/Oracle Sparc doing DB/web server loads at low power (with IBM Power
playing the high-VM-capacity game).

\- It's not so much the core CPU/ISA, which ends up being a small portion of
the chips. It's the expertise in multi-core buses, caches, and all related
paraphernalia. Not exactly where ARM have been playing ...

Might be that ARM will be happy to let Google/Agnilux work on that, and
cooperate on CPU tweaks, keeping the license revenue.

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rbanffy
I think they are considering doing to x86 servers what x86 servers did to RISC
servers. They grab the low-end, get volume and become more competitive. x86
competes by going further in the same direction it is now, which is by
becoming faster. Like RISC, they will ultimately be reduced to a niche if they
go this route.

And that would make me happy. I never liked the 8008 and its offspring. The
ARM is much more elegant.

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ippisl
I think things have changed since clayton christensen wrote his book on
disruptive innovation. Intel is very much aware of disruptive innovation, and
is really trying to compete on the low end, see the celeron processor ,and the
efforts intel is putting into lower cost, lower power atom processors .

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rbanffy
It takes a lot of balls to put a low-margin product to compete with your cash
cows.

I doubt many Intel execs are willing to sacrifice their short-term bonuses for
the survival of the company after they left or retired.

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ippisl
Clayton christensen, in his book , recommended to assign disruptive innovation
projects, to seperate business units.I remember that the celeron development
was one of the highest achievement of the israel intel branch. so maybe they
implmented christensen's advice.

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rbanffy
IIRC, it was the Pentium M that came from the Israel branch. The first
Celerons (again, IIRC) were common Pentium IIs without cache in the processor
cartridge.

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ippisl
"What Intel did was set up a separate business unit in Israel down at the low
end. They have a product called the Celeron chip which is much cheaper and
came in at the low end of the market. "
<http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~cs671/interview.doc>

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jorgecastillo
Good news but I rather have an ARM-based desktop that can compete with x86/64
machines.

