[HN Gopher] Google readies its own chip for future Pixels, Chrom...
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Google readies its own chip for future Pixels, Chromebooks
Author : igravious
Score : 69 points
Date : 2020-12-04 20:37 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| syntaxing wrote:
| I'm kind of curious if Google still use Chisel to design their
| CPU like their TPUs.
| borramakot wrote:
| Are are the TPUs in Chisel? I thought only a subset, like edge,
| were in Chisel?
| syntaxing wrote:
| Hmm, that is a good point. I know the Coral stuff is made
| from Chisel but I am not entirely sure if their cloud TPUs
| are
| tyingq wrote:
| Probably worth noting the story is from April.
|
| Another story from April with a few more details:
| https://www.xda-developers.com/google-is-working-on-its-own-...
| igravious wrote:
| I searched HN; nobody had submitted this story from any source
| to the best of my knowledge. First I heard about this Project
| Whitechapel was today when Dave2d mentioned it in a video about
| upcoming next gen (2021) smartphones, props to Dave:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7HxYOaFr88 - couldn't believe
| it hadn't been discussed here.
| oyra wrote:
| this big advertisement company has no business developing chips.
| With all due respect to engineers working on those, one little
| tweak in search result ranking or another smart sneaking behind
| unaware user earn them lot more than any new chip however good
| will ever. from pure business perspective, there's no a single
| one real intensive to develop such chips. Also, they have failed
| to develop far less complex chips in the past, despite very
| competent teams. There will be a failure this time around too.
| free2OSS wrote:
| I'd be shocked if this ever made it to production.
|
| I'd be more shocked if they did this for 2 generations of pixels.
|
| The problem with vertical integration is how fast you can be
| obsolete by competitors. You only need 1 competitor to make a
| better product and your internal Engineers are going to be
| begging for it.
|
| Unlike Apple customers, the rest of the population is sensitive
| to performance and cost. If Google can't compete people move on.
|
| Edit- Samsung is not a flagship company, their high pricing has
| nothing to do with performance. At best they are mid tier.
| Zenst wrote:
| Maybe a logical progression for the TPU chips and having on-
| board cores to manage the TPU side of things for performance
| does make sense and if they can scale this for other products,
| then why not. Given the whole mobile CPU performance caught up
| and power usage become the biggest saving area on the table PR
| financially as well as direct financial savings. Then I'd
| hazard a educated stab that maybe what is afoot here.
|
| However it pans, the Linux kernel is sure going to see some
| nice ARM optimisations over the comming years out of all this
| drive.
| schoolornot wrote:
| Apple has a 10 year lead time on Google for running OSes on in-
| house Silicon. If there is no intention to compete with
| Qualcomm, how are they going to get the economies of scale
| problem down to where the chips are affordable + performant?
| The volumes of Chromebooks/Pixels sold in a week vs. iPhones in
| a week is stark.
| nxc18 wrote:
| I don't get how you can look at Apple's mobile offerings, which
| have been years ahead of all the Android competition, and come
| to the conclusion that Apple customers don't care about
| performance.
|
| I'd say Apple's customers are far more sensitive to performance
| than Google's given what Android users have been willing to put
| up with (e.g. flagship SoCs that are years behind what's in
| last year's iPhones). If you factor in broader aspects of
| performance (e.g. Face ID, fingerprint unlock speed) it's clear
| that the _only_ thing most Android users care about is cost.
| I'm not saying this to diss them, I just think the Android
| manufacturers owe it to their users to actually produce
| competitive hardware and software.
|
| P.S. if you factor in longevity, Apple products are usually
| cheaper, too.
| aylmao wrote:
| > Unlike Apple customers, the rest of the population is
| sensitive to performance and cost. If Google can't compete
| people move on.
|
| Maybe they meant both independently. As an example:
|
| - A friend of mine just upgraded out of his iPhone 6. Until
| recently performance and storage seemingly just weren't that
| important to them.
|
| - Another friend of mine will just buy iPhones, no matter the
| cost.
|
| Both of these friends stick with Apple because they like and
| care about other things about the ecosystem more so than
| performance or cost (independently), whereas OP was perhaps
| implying that Android users tend to care more about
| "performance to cost ratio" since they could as well just buy
| a different phone from another maker and get the same Android
| experience. This of course, in the context sticking with one
| phone maker or another.
| jdhn wrote:
| As someone who upgraded this year from the 6 to the SE 2, I
| held out not only because I like the ecosystem, but also
| because I'm not shelling out almost one grand for a phone.
| The SE hit the sweet spot, so I ordered one the first day
| it came out.
| aylmao wrote:
| I wish I had waited and gotten an SE 2, especially
| because Touch ID is way more convenient than Face ID
| nowadays that one's often wearing a face mask haha
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Apple has a first class in house design team. Google is subbing
| out so they don't get any long term benefit from an experienced
| employee base and they have to share a slice of the extra
| profit with someone else in addition to paying larger license
| fees to ARM than Apple needs to.
|
| This is probably just a bow shot to Qualcomm to get a better
| deal out of them the same way PC vendors threaten to switch to
| AMD to squeeze Intel.
| rovr138 wrote:
| The problem I see is, will they support it? Or will they send
| it to the graveyard?
| acdha wrote:
| > Unlike Apple customers, the rest of the population is
| sensitive to performance and cost. If Google can't compete
| people move on.
|
| This is an odd phrasing: Apple's pricing isn't higher than the
| competition -- flagship Android phones frequently cost
| noticeably more -- and when it comes to performance it's very
| hard to beat the $400 iPhone SE2 at any price.
|
| Vertical integration is what allows Apple to be ahead on both
| price and performance. The only way Google is matching that is
| with a strong long-term commitment to make similar investments.
| Apple will falter at some point but after years of ignoring the
| basics Google won't be able to take advantage of that --
| especially since at this point they're chasing Apple's previous
| generation so it'd take an extended sag for Google to catch up
| much less surpass with their current half-hearted strategy.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > Vertical integration is what allows Apple to be ahead on
| both price and performance.
|
| I don't know about that. The processor is the main thing they
| have vertically integrated, right? And if I go look at a
| flagship like a Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G I see a BOM of $57 for
| the processor. (It does have a hideously expensive modem for
| 5G but it didn't need to have that.)
| rement wrote:
| I think free2OSS is implying that Apple customers care more
| about the brand than the performance and cost.
| websitejanitor wrote:
| >Apple's pricing isn't higher than the competition
|
| Back in the Intel days you were paying twice as much for a
| Macbook laptop that used the same CPU as whatever Windows
| laptop with similar specs.
| architect64 wrote:
| I suspect one great benefit of Google designing their own
| chipset is the software maintainability aspect of it, as they
| won't have to rely on Qualcomm supporting the chipset for >3
| years, not to mention the additional complexity around
| integrating with a 3rd party vendor.
|
| So while performance likely won't match Apple's chips,
| hopefully we'll at least get more years of security updates
| than the usual 3.
|
| Plus, more competition wouldn't hurt.
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| Apple: _releases the M1 Silicon_
|
| Google: Write that down! Write that down!
| kevincox wrote:
| If they are getting working prototypes now this must have been
| in the pipeline for multiple years.
| qz2 wrote:
| It'll be more Google: "hold my beer"
| dylan604 wrote:
| which usually doesn't end well for the person saying it. are
| you suggesting Google will belly flop into the pool of custom
| chips?
| jburky wrote:
| Possibly just like the over hyped release of their pixel...
| I was very disappointed
| qz2 wrote:
| Yes. They don't think hard enough before they do things or
| put enough care into doing it. That's apparent in their
| product lineup, support and reliability.
| [deleted]
| saagarjha wrote:
| Is this going to be a custom core design, or a repackaging of a
| Cortex-A77?
| tener wrote:
| While it looks like copying Apple, it doesn't necessarily mean
| this is a bad idea. Google did produce TPUs so this isn't theirs
| first rodeo. Also Apple is using ARM so whatever are their
| improvements, others can potentially match. Of course the
| execution matters, but if the current trend continues it may well
| be an existential threat to Android and by extension, Google.
| mankyd wrote:
| Also, presumably this whole process didn't start this month.
| Developing a chip takes time. This article makes it sound as
| though this is well on its way to production.
| saagarjha wrote:
| > Also Apple is using ARM so whatever are their improvements,
| others can potentially match.
|
| Apple uses the ARM ISA but entirely custom cores, so this is
| like saying "AMD is using x86_64, so Intel can match them".
| freeone3000 wrote:
| A year ago, the hypothetical would have been "Intel is using
| x86_64, so AMD can match them".
|
| The G3 and G4 chips were much faster in their time than
| comparable Pentiums, as well.
|
| The M1 chip is faster, currently, but it's not invincible.
| rusticpenn wrote:
| Its not only about the speed but the power draw at those
| speeds.
| chungus_khan wrote:
| G3 and G4 chips also had a fair lead there at the time.
| At the time iBooks were getting twice the battery life of
| most x86 competitors at least.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Why don't we see more chips on Samsung's silicon?
|
| Samsung doesn't even ship their own phones to the US with Samsung
| silicon. Is this a patent issue with the modems?
| wmf wrote:
| Samsung's Exynos chips have historically been slower or less
| power-efficient than Qualcomm Snapdragon.
| xxpor wrote:
| Well, Exynos SoCs are widely panned as garbage. People in
| Europe regularly import HK versions of phones to get the
| Qualcomm version.
|
| Second, my understanding is they don't have CDMA support, which
| is still relevant in the US. So they either use Snapdragons, or
| pay Qualcomm for the patents and then go make a new SoC. I
| guess it's easier to just pay Qualcomm for the Snapdragons.
| jl2718 wrote:
| It's not just about copying Apple or reducing costs. It's about
| the benefit of SoC integration, and Chrome/Android is unique
| enough in this regard to get a lot of benefit versus discrete
| components.
| the-dude wrote:
| So we are finally getting these Java-processors?
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(page generated 2020-12-04 23:01 UTC)