Intel Launches Atom CPU With Integrated FPGA 188
An anonymous reader writes "Intel is quite clearly serious about offering competition to ARM in the embedded market, and has just announced a new Atom processor series that offers a unique selling point: an integral FPGA processor. Billed as 'the first configurable Intel Atom-based processor,' the Atom E600C series combines an Intel Atom 'Tunnel Creek' chip with an Altera Field Programmable Gate Array — offering, the company claims, significantly more flexibility for ODMs and OEMs."
Re:double rainbows (Score:3, Insightful)
If there was a mass market, you'd make an ASIC. This lets embedded developers create special circuitry for whatever embedded need they have, which is useful but I don't see it as a mass market product for regular consumers.
Re:Don't know if this is a first (Score:3, Insightful)
This announcement is somewhat different, though, in that it seems they have integrated an FPGA fabric on a traditional CPU die.
No they haven't - it's two chips in one package.
Re:double rainbows (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:more jobs for me (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:double rainbows (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably not for anything you'd be interested in. Unless of course, you're interested in a slow CPU with slow (but custom) logic. If you want fast custom logic, or ridiculously low-power, you go with an ASIC (assuming you have either high volume, or can tolerate a high per-unit price). If you don't have a rather complex, repetitive calculation to do, you go with a regular CPU. If you do have a big calculation, you might consider a faster CPU or GPU, or at least something with a faster connection between the FPGA and CPU. If your calculation isn't particularly complex (eg something simple like adding two numbers), a CPU will already be faster and lower-power, assuming it has an instruction (or several) that implements the function you need.
In the end, Intel has just managed to invent yet another piece of hardware for which there is no good programming model. It's been how many years, and there is STILL no killer model for programming multiple core machines? Yes, there are many ways, but each has pretty significant disadvantages, and the vast majority of applications that people use see very minimal benefit from multiple cores (often because there's no great way to program for them without investing significant effort, see previous sentence).
This will be interesting for small embedded systems designers, who can come up with nifty ways to use the hardware, don't have large volumes, and can charge high prices since their customers have low-volume very specific needs. The rest of us will ignore it, forget it, and not shed a tear when Intel quietly discontinues the product.
Re:FPGA users already don't care (Score:2, Insightful)
THis might be the weak point. Suppliers cannot change to a ASIC in a later phase, unless intel licenses the atom cpu. (right....). The biggest advantage of atom is de x86 development tools and applications (windows). The Quick to Market is a big win there. However to optimize power/price in a later phase is not possible.
Good example (Score:3, Insightful)
It would let viruses create some custom FPGA code that would be able to crack any encrypted files you had in mere seconds, instead of hours.
Re:Only certain Virtex-2Pro/4/5s have PowerPC core (Score:3, Insightful)
The largest I have seen has two PowerPC 440 cores. That would be the Virtex-5 FX130T and FX200T (Only different in the number of logic gates available).
None of the current V6s do, but I keep hearing about Xilinx going to ARM. It is in one of their roadmap documents but no real info on exactly where in the roadmap it is.
Unlike Intel's solution, the Xilinx units have everything on a single silicon die.
And my God, the tools SUCK.