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Imagination introduces Catapult RISC-V CPU cores
As expected, Imagination Technologies is giving another try to the CPU IP market with the Catapult RISC-V CPU cores following their previous unsuccessful attempt with the MIPS architecture, notably the Aptiv family.
Catapult RISC-V CPUs are/will be available in four distinct families for dynamic microcontrollers, real-time embedded CPUs, high-performance application CPUs, and functionally safe automotive CPUs.
The new 32-/64-bit RISC-V cores will be scalable to up to eight asymmetric coherent cores-per cluster, offer a "plethora of customer configurable options", and support optional custom accelerators. What you won't see today are block diagrams and detailed technical information about the cores because apparently, all that information is confidential even though some Catapult RISC-V cores are already shipping "in high-performance Imagination automotive GPUs". The only way to get more details today is to sign an NDA.
Also at AnandTech and Phoronix.
Previously: Imagination Announces B-Series GPU IP: Scaling up with Multi-GPU
Imagination Technologies Plans to Design RISC-V Cores
Related: Innosilicon Graphics Cards Based on "Fantasy One" GPU Feature Up to 32GB GDDR6X Memory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @02:39PM (3 children)
the confidentiality puts the whole thing at risk.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 07 2021, @02:54PM (2 children)
a Beowulf cluster of these clusters!
Or, is that old joke worn out now?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Tuesday December 07 2021, @04:37PM (1 child)
I for one welcome our new RISC-V overlords.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @05:48PM
with lasers, sharks, and hot grits (or great tits - a salute to TMB)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @03:03PM (8 children)
i don't want to pooh-pooh on the parade ... but how much "chip" is needed for a electric car you don't mind driving yourself? also how many "bomble"-flops do you really need to carry around to make a phone call?
it seems all the extra transistors go into advertising your need for mEOr " bomble"-flops.
today i found (and bought) a solid state relay. it has a dc input 9v-25v that can switch 135-250VAC/50hz @ 40A current on and off.
so basically this match-box size device with "half a nano bomble flop" now controls if my hybrid inverter is connected to the grid or not.
@ dc input there's a mini solarpanel that controls the relay. if it "sees" sun, the ac side closes and connects the hybrid inverter to grid. if it's dark the hybrid inverter and battery turn into off-grid. thanks to half-a-nano bomble flop of processing... the grid is now my "excess energy" dumping ground. like a landfill, junk yard but for electricity (we don't want to overcharge/blow up) the battery, lol.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @04:20PM (1 child)
> how many "bomble"-flops do you really need to carry around to make a phone call?
I was trying to reduce active (not idle) power consumption* on my phone (playing podcasts burns through the battery at around 3% per hour), and experimented with disabling cpu cores.
It has a Snapdragon 730G A55 and A76 cores.
I disabled all but one A55 "small" core, and the phone was very painful to use. But, with two A55 cores, web browsing (with ublock origin), calls, messaging, UI navigation, podcast player, etc., were all fine. So, for my use case, I apparently don't need anywhere close to the maximum "bomble-flops" available on my phone.
*Even with only a single A55 core enabled, it didn't help with active power consumption, though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @04:34PM
Phone manufacturers have tuned the hell out of basic power efficiency at this point for RUNNING software.
The only thing you can do to significantly increase your power efficiency is turn down your screen brightness and disable software/services that you don't give a damn about but that the phone manufacturer or software companies do, generally for the purposes of spying on you to collect marketing data.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @04:32PM (2 children)
This doesn't make you sound cool, intelligent, aloof, or whatever you were going for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @06:17PM
sorry ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @09:03PM
To better help our British editors understand, I propose we henceforth refer to them as "boffin-flops".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @04:38PM
Physical control loops generally only need to operate at a frequency of no more than 1 kHz. Imagine a processor dedicated to operating that control loop. A CPU frequency of 1 to 10 MHz might be enough to run that 1 kHz physical update control loop.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday December 07 2021, @04:43PM
<no-sarcasm>
Big systems with big applications want lots of cpu power and lots of memory. Especially if written in Java.
</no-sarcasm>
It took Deep Thought 7-1/2 million years (according to this [wikipedia.org]) to compute the ultimate answer to life the universe and everything.
Imagine how much time could have been saved by a 20% increase in cpu performance?
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 07 2021, @10:06PM
https://www.cnx-software.com/2021/12/06/amlogic-v901d-a-quad-core-cortex-a55-processor-for-in-vehicle-infotainment/ [cnx-software.com]
The new minimum for infotainment!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @06:49PM (1 child)
Imagination, as per company policy it seems, is difficult to work with. They sure don't want to supply documentation and they sure don't want you to talk about their products if you're unfortunate enough to have purchased any.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @08:47PM
Company has been circling the drain for years since Apple dumped them.
Today, PowerVR is synonymous for cheap Android phones that Mediatek got a sweetheart deal not to include Mali on.
FOSS drivers exist for most other GPUs except this one - FSF still has a high priority page to reverse engineer the firmware from back when OMAP was still relevant more than a decade ago.
Avoid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @09:56PM
"What you won't see today are block diagrams and detailed technical information about the cores because apparently, all that information is confidential even though some Catapult RISC-V cores are already shipping "in high-performance Imagination automotive GPUs". The only way to get more details today is to sign an NDA."
Imagination are stupid slaveware peddling whores.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 08 2021, @12:30AM
Imagination Technologies Announces "Catapult" RISC-V CPU Cores
If it’s made by Imagination, it might as well be “Catapulted” right into the dumpster.