And so the corporate wars have begun
Syndicate was fun but I didn’t want to LIVE inside of it…
Not enough miniguns yet.
I saw this documentary where taco bell won them.
KFC / Pizza Hut / Taco Bell – the only restaurant you need!
Only in the US. In Europe, Pizza Hut won.
everyone near a clinic should get a burner and leave it at the clinic without hanging around
I think you’re in the wrong classroom. Government abortion-clinic cellphone tracking software is next door.
This will get RISC-V probably a big boost. Maybe this was not the smartest move for ARMs long term future. But slapping Qualcomm is always a good idea, its just such a shitty company.
I’ll wait and see. RISC-V is a nice idea, but there are way too many different “standards” to make it a viable ecosystem.
What do you mean by standards?
Several differing extensions of the RISC-V core machine instructions, for example. A pain in the rear for any compiler builder.
That’s a good thing, meaning you can design RISC-V CPUs without functionality you don’t need (like microcontrollers that only need basic operations). However, for those who want a complete CPU, there are RVA profiles (latest being RVA23), which are a list of extensions required to be an application-ready CPU. So there’s really just 1 “standard” for general purpose computing, everything else is for specialized products.
And it does not concern you that this RVA profile is version 23? Which means there are a number of CPUs based on lower versions, too, as they don’t just update on a whim? And they are incompatible, with version 23 because they lack instructions?
So a compiler would have to support at least a certain number of those profiles (usually, parts in the embedded world are supported for 10+ years!), and be capable of supporting the one or other non-RVA extension, too, to satisfy customer needs.
That is exactly what I meant with “too many standards”.
And it does not concern you that this RVA profile is version 23
Not sure where you got that information. There are only 5 RISC-V profiles.
And they are incompatible, with version 23 because they lack instructions?
Like all the x86 CPUs from a few years ago that don’t have all the new extensions? Not supporting new extensions doesn’t mean the CPU is useless, only that it’s worse than new ones, as things should be when there’s progress. Or I guess you throw out your x86 CPU every time Intel/AMD create a new instruction?
So a compiler would have to support at least a certain number of those profiles
Do you think compilers only target one x86 version with one set of instructions? For example in x86, there’s SIMD versions SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, compilers support all of them, and that’s literally just for the SIMD instructions. What’s new?
Yes, there are differences in certain x86 command sets. But they actually have a market. RISC-V is just a niche, and splintering in a small niche is making the support situation worse.
Yeah, in the current macro environment Qualcomm isn’t that tied down & can afford some changes (basically with a few of their biggest partners that can keep their profits up even in a few transitioning years). Not sure what prompted ARM to force such a deal instead of getting like a good compromise.
But also fuck Qualcomm & their closed-softwareness.
Im still hoping I can buy a RISC-V laptop (from Framework?) in 2 or 3 years & just run Linux normally.
And if that can happen & RISC-V still doesn’t overall prosper it’s bcs of some shitty greedy deals between megacorps.You are overestimating RISC-V. It cannot save the planet alone.
ARM provides complete chip designs.
RISC-V is more like an API, and then you still need to design your chips behind it.
I could be wrong, but I think Qualcomm designs its own chips and only licenses the “API”, so it would be no difference for them.
If they use Cortex cores, they are ARM designs. Oryon cores are in house based on Nuvia designs, and I assume it would still require a complete chip redesign if they decide to switch to RISC-V.
From my understanding, most companies take the reference design from Arm and then alter it to fit their needs.
That’s a big part of what’s going on. ARM is trying to move into Qualcomm’s traditional business while Qualcomm is trying to move in ARM’s traditional business.
"Under Chief Executive Officer Rene Haas, Arm has shifted to offering more complete designs — ones that companies can take directly to contract manufacturers. Haas believes that his company, still majority owned by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp., should be rewarded more for the engineering work it does. That shift encroaches on the business of Arm’s traditional customers, like Qualcomm, who use Arm’s technology in their own final chip designs.
Meanwhile, under CEO Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm is moving away from using Arm designs and is prioritizing its own work, something that potentially makes it a less lucrative customer for Arm. He’s also expanding into new areas, most notably computing, where Arm is making its own push. But the two companies’ technologies remain intertwined, and Qualcomm isn’t yet in a position to make a clean break from Arm."
Interesting. So essentially Arm is butthurt that Qualcomm doesn’t want to send them a shitload of money and instead tries to do their own thing, so Arm is trying to force them into buying their product regardless?
Of course i will still take RISC-V a long time to be even relevant. But in the future there could be multiple Companies that offer finished chip designs to use. As you said not every company wants and can create a design themself.
True, I just wished RISCV laptops were slightly more developed and available. As of now, the specs aren’t there yet in those devices that are available. (8core@2Ghz, but only 16GB Ram, too little for me)
Kind of a bummer, was coming up to a work laptop upgrade soon and was carefully watching the Linux support for Snapdragon X because I can’t bring myself to deal with Apple shenanigans, but like the idea of performance and efficiency. The caution with which I approached it stems from my “I don’t really believe a fucking thing Qualcomm Marketing says” mentality, and it seems holding off and watching was the right call. Oh well, x86 for another cycle, I guess.
ARM CPU prob means that at some point you’ll get stuck with a kernel limit.
But did you imply you would buy (now) a RISC-V laptop if it had more RAM & cores?
I think, I would go for a ARM Tuxedo PC in your position.
Oh, still some time needed for that as well, but you can see the progress (a lot is working now at kernel 6.11)
https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Where-are-we-with-our-TUXEDO-ARM-Notebook.tuxedo
With the understanding that both of these are publicly traded multi-billion-dollar corporations and therefore neither should be trusted (albeit Arm Holdings has about 1/10 of the net assets), I feel like I distrust Arm less on this one than whatever Qualcomm is doing on their coke-fueled race to capitalize on the AI bubble.
What does trust have to do with anything? I mean, they seem to be arguing because Qualcomm bought a separate licensor and ARM argues that requires a contract renegotiation. This is the least take sides-y legal dispute in the history of legal disputes.
What does trust have to do with anything?
The fact that I’m not a legal expert who’s read the relevant portion of the existing contract? Like what Arm says seems reasonable, but at the end of the day, I have nothing definitive to go on.
Oh, no, I agree, what I’m saying is you don’t need to trust anybody here. Not everything is a sport, you can see this happen and not root for anybody. It’s a complex legal problem that likely flies over everybody’s heads without reading all the relevant communications. It’s not a take sides, trust-based thing.
Folks, grab your popcorn.
God, I know exactly the sketch
Part of the reason why when people were saying they wanted competition to unseat x86, I didn’t want it to be ARM based, because I knew 100% that ARM would jump in and do some shit to rake in more profit and negate all the potential cost savings to the consumer. As long as theres a single(or in the case of x86, essentially (but technically not) duopoly) that controls all the options for one of the options, then it’s not a good form of competition.
ARM wants a sweeter deal.
Nailed it. They know they have a leading chip in these designs now, the market is expanding, and whatever licensing fee was negotiated in the past needs to be revisited.
“Economies of scale” 🤡
ARM is mad because Qualcomm bought Nuvia (which had their own ARM license) and then started using Nuvia’s designs. ARM says that Qualcomm needs to renegotiate the license in order to use those designs.
Normally ARM and Qualcomm would handle this fairly smoothly, the reason its not happening this time is because ARM and Qualcomm both have growth plans that are increasingly making them direct competitors.
IT Crowd s04e03 timestamp 6:25 - if someone was looking for a scene.
Hopefully Qualcomm takes the hint and takes this opportunity to develop a high performance RISC V core. Don’t just give the extortionists more money, break free and use an open standard. Instruction sets shouldn’t even require licensing to begin with if APIs aren’t copyrightable. Why is it OK to make your own implentation of any software API (see Oracle vs. Google on the Java API, Wine implementing the Windows API, etc) but not OK to do the same thing with an instruction set (which is just a hardware API). Why is writing an ARM or x86 emulator fine but not making your own chip? Why are FPGA emulator systems legal if instruction sets are protected? It makes no sense.
The other acceptable outcome here is a Qualcomm vs. ARM lawsuit that sets a precedence that instruction sets are not protected. If they want to copyright their own cores and sell the core design fine, but Qualcomm is making their own in house designs here.
Simping for Qualcomm is definitely not a take i expected
In the mobile Linux scene, Qualcomm chips are some of the best supported ones. I don’t love everything Qualcomm does, but the Snapdragon 845 makes for a great Linux phone and has open source drivers for most of the stack (little thanks to Qualcomm themselves).
Qualcomm is one of the worst monopolists in any industry though. They are widely known to have a stranglehold on all mobile device development
takes this opportunity to develop a high performance RISC V core
They might. This would never be open sourced though. Best case scenario is the boost they would provide to the ISA as a whole by having a company as big as Qualcomm backing it.
RISC V is just an open standard set of instructions and their encodings. It is not expected nor required for implementations of RISC V to be open sourced, but if they do make a RISC V chip they don’t have to pay anyone to have that privilege and the chip will be compatible with other RISC V chips because it is an open and standardized instruction set. That’s the point. Qualcomm pays ARM to make their own chip designs that implement the ARM instruction set, they aren’t paying for off the shelf ARM designs like most ARM chip companies do.
The RISCV instruction set IS open source. What they’d do to ratfuck it is lock the bootloader or something.
BUT Imagine if it was open sourced. God, Gods, by the nine, would be heaven.
If Qualcomm released a FOSS RISC-V IP core that would’ve required spending multiple millions on hardware engineer salaries (no chance in hell), I would:
- Spontaneously ejaculate
- Pull out my FPGA
Don’t just give the extortionists more money
Or maybe they were just trying to pay a lot less money, and then they got caught at their little trick.
Do you know how much money you have to pay to make a RISC V chip? Even less than that, since it’s free
If it’s that’s easy / cheap then why have they not?
This is a big ol’ game of bluff from both sides. So, according to you, Qualcomm should call their bluff?
They would need a new core design
Wonder how long that’d take, hmm?
Development is never free, especially, if you have to build new knowhow and can not build upon the one they have built at development of ARM chips.
By that logic every company would just run on linux. Free to use ≠ free to implement and support.
You have not read the article.
Saying an ISA is just a hardware API vastly oversimplifies what an architecture is. There is way more to it than just the instruction set, because you can’t have an instruction set without also defining the numbers and types of registers, the mapping of memory and how the CPU interacts with it, the input/output model for the system, and a bunch of other features like virtual memory, addressing modes etc. Just to give an idea, the ARM reference is 850 pages long.
APIs can be complex too. Look at how much stuff the Win32 API provides from all the kernel calls, defined data structures/types, libraries, etc. I would venture a guess that if you documented the Win32 API including all the needed system libraries to make something like Wine, it would also be 850 pages long. The fact remains that a documented prototype for a software implementation is free to reimplement but a documented prototype for a hardware implementation requires a license. This makes no sense from a fairness perspective. I’m fine with ARM not giving away their fully developed IP cores which are actual implementations of the ARM instruction set, but locking third parties from making their own compatible designs without a license is horribly anticompetitive. I wish standards organizations still had power. Letting corporations own de-facto “standards” is awful for everyone.
Is this somewhat related why qualcomm suddenly decided to bring oryon to smartphones?
Yes, absolutely related. This fight started because Qualcomm bought Nuvia and started using their designs (and their ARM license for those designs). This recent escalation is almost certainly because Qualcomm is about to bring Oryon, which was designed by Nuvia, to smartphones.
Read this article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/arm-to-cancel-qualcomm-chip-design-license-in-escalation-of-feud/ar-AA1sK49J
Geez, that is some stupid situation, I kinda got excited with oryon going on android since it is their only ip that is currently being opensourced.
IDK man but my tinfoil hat says that apple are the one who is pulling the strings on arm with regards to this.
I liked the puntastic writing. Qualcomm smh
I guess they will have to make x86 work
Qualcomm, x86-64?
Intel and AMD aren’t going to give them the go-ahead for that lol
They cannot veto it. The patents for x86-64 and SSE2 lapse next year. The only say they have is on extension newer than these two.
I wonder if their recent bid to take over Intel, is related.
The irony would be very thik as Qualcomm played a big role in killing Intel’s 2010er efforts to enter the mobile sector.
Qualcomm is not trying to take over Intel.
Not only has it been denied by both parties, it would 100% not go ahead. Additionally, it would invalidate the x86 cross-licence that AMD and Intel have, meaning Intel would no longer be able to make modern x86 CPUs. Frankly it’s also somewhat doubtful Qualcomm wants to take Intel on.
The rumour was likely someone trying to pump up the stock and sell.
I’m just being a little pedantic. But I believe you meant x64?
They did, AMD holds the x64 license, Intel holds the x86.
The x86 license itself doesn’t matter much anymore. Those patents expired a long time ago. Early x86_64 is held by AMD, but those patents are also expiring soon.
There’s more advancements past that which are held by both Intel and AMD. You still can’t make a modern x86 CPU on your own. Soon, you’ll be able to make a CPU with an instruction set compatible with the first Athlon 64-bit processors, but that’s as far as it goes.
x86_64
X64 doesn’t exist. Microsoft used the label for Windows for a while to distinguish from IA64 (Itanium) and 32bit x86 editions of Windows but these days Microsoft moved mostly away from those labels and only uses them when talking about ARM.
thanks, proprietary licenses.
can we finally move to open standards now or will these fucks keep on losing money just to spite foss?
Laughs in OpenPOWER
And we all wept.
