Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 6th Jan 2009 09:36 UTC, submitted by caffeine deprived
It seems that after Intel, just about every chip maker wants a piece of the netbook pie. AMD is an obvious competitor, but VIA is also eyeing the little notebooks. However, more exotic options like the Chinese Loongson chips and ARM's Cortex A-8 and A-9 chips are also among the contenders. We can now add a new contender: Freescale.
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RE: not sure about freescale
by mythicalman on Tue 6th Jan 2009 14:46
in reply to "not sure about freescale"
Member since:2009-01-06
They were notorious in the days as motorola and then freescale of not being able to supply the chips they promised quickly enough nor at the clock they said they would to Apple
Actually, nobody was able to produce PowerPC desktop chips for Apple, not even IBM.
The cost of developing a desktop chip outweighed the relatively small volumes that Apple was willing to purchase. (And Apple was practically their only desktop client.) For every desktop chip that it sold, FSL was selling 2-3 orders of magnitude more in embedded processors.
Why spend all that R&D effort on desktop that can't be leveraged for the embedded space? A 64-bit DMA core can only be used on a desktop machine but a great new timer core can be reused in several different embedded platforms.
RE: not sure about freescale
by pxa270 on Tue 6th Jan 2009 15:51
in reply to "not sure about freescale"
Member since:2006-01-08
Their new chip is 'i.MX515 processor is based on the Cortex-A8 core from Arm'
The question is how 'based upon' is it? Compatible with ARM optimised distros? or require a recompile? Is it an ARM with an altivec style engine bolted on?
The question is how 'based upon' is it? Compatible with ARM optimised distros? or require a recompile? Is it an ARM with an altivec style engine bolted on?
It's probably just an implementation of the Cortex-A8, not an alteration. ARM doesn't manufacture anything, they just license their designs. Typically, manufacturers take an ARM core and bolt on other parts (GPU, various controllers) to make a SoC (system on chip). The only other current Cortex implementation that I'm aware of is the TI OMAP3 series. The CPU part should be 100% compatible.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
They were notorious in the days as motorola and then freescale of not being able to supply the chips they promised quickly enough nor at the clock they said they would to Apple
Their new chip is 'i.MX515 processor is based on the Cortex-A8 core from Arm'
The question is how 'based upon' is it? Compatible with ARM optimised distros? or require a recompile? Is it an ARM with an altivec style engine bolted on?
I'm not sure they will be able to stand up in direct competition with Intel, AMD and VIA in addition to the real wild card of the chinese chip