The Rise of ARM (and embedded always-on hardware spying)

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Sun Dec 11 13:17:53 PST 2016


http://www.tomshardware.com/news/qualcomm-debuts-10nm-processor-48-cores,33151.html
Qualcomm and its Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies subsidiary announced
today that the company has already begun sampling its first 10nm
server processor. The Centriq 2400 is the second generation of
Qualcomm server SOCs, but it is the first in its new family of 10nm
FinFET processors. The Centriq 2400 features up to 48 custom Qualcomm
ARMv8-compliant Falkor cores and comes a little over a year after
Qualcomm began developing its first-generation Centriq processors.
Qualcomm's introduction of a 10nm server chip while Intel is still
refining its 14nm process appears to be a clear shot across Intel's
bow--due not only to the smaller process, but also its sudden lead in
core count. Intel's latest 14nm E7 Broadwell processors top out at 24
cores.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10889/microsoft-and-qualcomm-bring-windows-10-to-snapdragon-processors
Today at Microsoft's WinHEC event in Shenzhen, China, the company
announced that it's working with Qualcomm to bring the full Windows 10
experience to future devices powered by Snapdragon processors. These
new Snapdragon-powered devices should support all things Microsoft,
including Microsoft Office, Windows Hello, Windows Pen, and the Edge
browser, alongside third-party Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps
and, most interestingly, x86 (32-bit) Win32 apps. They should even be
able to play Crysis 2. This announcement fits nicely with Microsoft's
"Windows Everywhere" doctrine and should come as no surprise. It's not
even the first time we've seen Windows running on ARM processors.
Microsoft's failed Windows RT operating system was a modified version
of Windows 8 that targeted the ARMv7-A 32-bit architecture. It grew
from Microsoft's MinWin effort to make Windows more modular by
reorganizing the operating system and cleaning up API dependencies.
The major change with today's announcement over Windows RT and UWP is
that x86 apps will be able to run on Qualcomm's ARM-based SoCs, along
with support for all of the peripherals that are already supported
with Windows 10. This alone is a huge change from Windows RT, which
would only work with a small subset of peripherals. Microsoft is also
focusing on having these devices always connected through cellular,
which is something that is not available for many PCs at the moment.
Support will be available for eSIM to avoid having to find room in a
cramped design to accommodate a physical SIM, and Microsoft is going
so far as to call these "cellular PCs" meaning they are expecting
broad support for this class of computer, rather than the handful
available now with cellular connectivity. The ability to run x86 Win32
apps on ARM will come through emulation, and to demonstrate the
performance Microsoft has released a video of an ARM PC running
Photoshop.


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