[geeks] PA Semi CPU start up company

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Mon, 22 May 2006 @ 12:59 -0500, Lionel Peterson said:

> >From: Bill Bradford <mrbill at mrbill.net>
> >Date: Mon May 22 12:56:01 CDT 2006
> >To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
> >Subject: Re: [geeks] PA Semi CPU start up company
> 
> >On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 01:14:38PM -0400, velociraptor wrote:
> >> Interesting article on a start-up that was working with Apple on a CPU
> >> deal before they signed with Intel:
> >> http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/05/19/pasemi_apple/
> >
> >People say "oh apple was stupid for giving up PowerPC", but this company
> >wasn't even shipping silicon yet... one of the reasons Apple went with Intel
> >was that Intel can meet demand (volume).
> 
> And, based on casual reports I've read, Intel delivered a much
> appreciated performance boost, esp. in Laptop applications, RIGHT NOW.

For laptops, sure.

But what about the desktop?

The G5 had a pretty nice motherboard, and the beginnings of a multi-channel
I/O architecture which allowed the whole system to communicate at the same
time.  It seemed like the right direction to go in.

Intel is promising a lot with PCI-e, suggesting it be used for everything,
maybe even as a switched fabric for PC motherboards to give them a more
mainframe like motherboard I/O system.

So far all PCI-e motherboards use it to talk to expansion slots, but
that's about it.  

Maybe Apple wants to be the first and has made a deal.

It just seems to me that HyperTransport is a more capable interconnect fabric
than PCI-e and has more lead time and is used even in high end systems.

Oh well, should be interesting to see what works out.


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