Vol 18, Issue 43

October 25, 2004

First FPF Finale

By Kevin Krewell

We've just completed our first Fall Processor Forum, the successor to Microprocessor Forum, and we are happy to report that paid attendance was up 15% over last year. We also had IBM's Bernie Meyerson give our highest-rated keynote speech in recent memory.

Bernie outlined the changes the industry is undergoing as we transition from system scaling, using "normal" semiconductor process shrinks, to an innovation-based scaling. I'll have more on Bernie's speech in a future story.

The program was packed with new and innovative processors from most key vendors in the field. You'll be reading about them in stories this month and next. Multicore and multithreading processors were there in abundance and are the best indicators of the direction of future performance scaling.

We closed the Forum with a panel discussion on embedded x86 benchmarking that proved both controversial and productive. We'll cover that discussion in a forthcoming story and will likely revisit the issue in future Forums as well. A benchmarking discussion would make a good birds-of-a-feather session at Spring Processor Forum 2005. We see a need to address the confusion AMD and Intel are creating with their model numbers and processor-numbering systems. Just wait till we get to the benchmarking issues of measuring and comparing the performance of dual-core processors with that of single-core processors running at higher clock speeds.

We have also begun some international expansion with a new Forum in Taiwan. By the time you read this editorial, that Forum will be over, but we have other locations in mind for 2005. Stay tuned for more information.

SpaceShipOne Makes Space History

While we were preparing for the Fall Processor Forum, space history was being made a few hundred miles away in Mojave, California. As a person who grew up watching the American space program unfold, with its Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, I was the most excited I have been in years to see a private program reach for space and succeed. It's also interesting to note that Burt's SpaceShipOne contains less electronics than the typical automobile. Sometimes, it's just better to stick to a KISS (keep it simple stupid) approach.

Burt Rutan, poster child for out-of-the-box thinking, designed, with funding from Microsoft cofounder Paul Allan, a unique craft that relied on a simple, but reliable, rocket motor and a unique approach to reentry that shifts the wings into a high-drag "shuttlecock" configuration that allows a controlled and low-heat reentry. Although the dead-stick (glider) landing doesn't allow for more than one landing try, Burt's pilots showed that even under less than optimal conditions, they can bring the ship in with relative ease, even at this experimental stage.

I guess the most important question is this: What took so long? Back in the 1960s, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark's movie 2001: A Space Odyssey showed private airlines running space shuttle operations. It seemed reasonable that industry would follow the government into space, but that transition never happened, and the space program became bogged down. We hope SpaceShipOne will become the true successor to Charles A. Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis and will usher in a new era of affordable commercial space travel. I'm hoping they can get the price of a trip down to four digits before I'm too old to go!

Once Again: Is Intel in Serious Trouble?

With the cancellation of the 4GHz speed bump of the Pentium 4 processor, people in the industry are once more asking whether the wheels have come off the train. Although this situation is another very public embarrassment for Intel, we still believe the company's long-term strategy of moving to multicore processors is sound and that its fab capacity is undiminished. The immediate challenge ahead for Intel will be holding off AMD's market share advances in desktop and server processors during the transition; we believe Intel can maintain strong leadership in mobile computing.

Intel's only concern in mobile would be if AMD acquired Transmeta: AMD could provide (relative) financial stability, and Transmeta's Efficeon would fill a gap in AMD's mobile product line. There are still many questions about such an acquisition, not the least of which is whether Transmeta would be worth the price at its present market value, and what AMD would do with yet another architecture and another design team. It might be possible, however, for the companies to work out an arrangement short of a merger.

In the meantime, Intel continues a series of missteps that have us perplexed. We are not in a position to recommend radical changes to Intel, but we have seen AMD was able to improve execution by combining the importation of fresh (outside) management; its small teams; work with outside consultants; and setting realistic goals. Intel has prided itself on tough, aggressive management and engineering excellence, but it may be a victim of its own success, with too many resources attacking too many markets. It is also possible that Intel's management and engineering communities have become too inbred and need an infusion of outside DNA. (It should be noted that one of Intel's more successful programs was the Pentium M processor, which came from an outlying design center in Israel.) Certainly, if Intel's goal was to lower expectations for the company, it has succeeded with me.