Microprocessor Watch

Editor: Michael Slater
Contributors: Linley Gwennap, Keith Diefendorff, Peter Glaskowsky

In This Issue:

• AMD Loses Second-in-Command Raza
• HotRail Rides With New Core Logic
• Microsoft Updates Multimedia Roadmap
• S3 To Acquire Diamond Multimedia
• Slater Perspective: Digital Photography Coming of Age
• Resources: Sprechen Sie SPEC?
• Resources: Intel Tells All at IDF
• Resources: Recent IC Announcements

AMD Loses Second-in-Command Raza

In a stunning blow, Atiq Raza has resigned as AMD's president and COO. Raza, the lone engineer among AMD's top management staff, was also serving as AMD's chief technical officer. Sources indicate Raza's departure came after repeated clashes with mercurial CEO Jerry Sanders. The well-respected Raza, who joined AMD after leading NexGen, drove the development of the K6 and K7 (Athlon) processors and more recently helped solve AMD's nagging manufacturing problems.

His departure comes at a critical time for AMD. Although the initial Athlon is now entering production, the company must successfully ramp up volume, convert the design to a 0.18-micron aluminum process in its Austin fab, convert it again to a 0.18- micron copper process for the Dresden fab, create specialized versions for the high-end and low-end segments, and aggressively ramp clock speed in order to keep pace with Intel. Without Raza's steady hand on the helm, this course suddenly appears more challenging. --L.G.

HotRail Rides With New Core Logic

After six years as Poseidon Technology, newly renamed HotRail is preparing to release a new chip set for symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) servers and workstations. HotRail (http://www.hotrail.com) is working with AMD to develop the first version of its chip set for Athlon, to be followed by versions for Alpha and other processors.

The new core logic, which has not yet been named and is still some months away from being taped out, uses a new cache-coherent switch-based architecture to achieve levels of throughput unmatched in PC-based commodity servers. HotRail's (and AMD's) primary competition for the planned four-way and eight-way configurations will come from Intel's standard high-volume (SHV) server designs based on the four-way 450NX chip set and the eight- way Profusion chip set, but HotRail appears to have some substantial advantages over these alternatives.

Though HotRail is focused on Athlon today, the company is otherwise processor-neutral. Once it has proved the value of its unique architecture, it plans to approach Intel and the major RISC processor vendors, hoping to achieve additional design wins.

HotRail is also looking ahead at other applications. The company believes that its switch-based architecture is a natural match for the needs of high-performance network controllers such as ATM edge switches, Internet firewalls, and encrypting routers. Conventional CPUs might be replaced by dedicated routing engines in such systems, but little else would need to change in the HotRail architecture. Switching technology is a natural fit for many applications in computing and data communications. If it can execute on its ambitious plans, HotRail is likely to find at least one such application to call its own. --P.N.G.

Microsoft Updates Multimedia Roadmap

Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface (API) is responsible for almost all of the multimedia features in every Windows operating system. Last month's Meltdown, the DirectX developers conference, featured the arrival of the first beta version of DirectX version 7.0 (DX7) and provided the first public disclosure of many features in the new API. Microsoft also described plans to improve the user experience for PC games, creating a "Drop and Play" environment more like that found on console games.

Some of these features reflect recent innovations in multimedia hardware, while others point the way to future hardware and software products. Companies in the PC multimedia industry must move quickly to keep up with the rapid pace of evolution in 3D graphics, audio, and video technology. No company is under greater pressure to adapt to these changes than Microsoft.

Microsoft makes substantial improvements to DirectX every year, and DX has become the preferred development environment for almost all PC multimedia software vendors. Features such as those unveiled at Meltdown '99 will only increase Microsoft's domination of this critical market. Whether this is good for the industry overall is a question for another time--but DirectX is definitely good for the Windows PC. --P.N.G.

S3 To Acquire Diamond Multimedia

S3 recently announced it intends to acquire Diamond Multimedia, a major customer of S3 graphics chips for Diamond's add-in-board business. Diamond, which also makes the Rio portable MP3 player and various other products, boasts almost three times S3's revenues. The merger gives S3 a larger revenue stream and gives Diamond better access to S3's silicon design expertise.

Later this year, S3 plans to introduce a highly integrated core- logic chip set for low-cost PCs and Internet appliances. Diamond's sales channels and brand identity will help S3 with this plan, and allow S3 to diversify into consumer electronics and other non-PC markets.

The deal continues an established trend toward greater vertical integration of graphics chip and board makers. ATI's integrated business model helped it became the most powerful player in the PC graphics market, and business-graphics powerhouse Matrox takes the same approach. 3Dfx recently completed its merger with STB in hopes of competing more effectively with these companies. Of the top five graphics-chip makers, only Nvidia remains unaffiliated with a board company; of the top five board makers, only Creative Labs lacks an in-house graphics-chip supplier. Can another deal be far off? --P.N.G.

Slater Perspective: Digital Photography Coming of Age

Since my "End of Film" column two years ago (see http://www.MDRonline.com/slater/film), I've gradually moved my photography toward an all-digital environment. Although the technology still is not ready for most consumers (due to cost and complexity) or the serious art photographer (due to quality), the threshold has been crossed for the early adopters.

Digital photography is important to the microprocessor world for two reasons. First, the cameras themselves represent a high-volume application for fast embedded processors; IDC projects sales of 4.7 million digital cameras this year and 22 million in 2003. Second, the PC becomes the center of picture viewing and printing for a digital camera user. The importance of a home PC--and the desire for it to have high performance--becomes far greater once the switch to digital photography is made.

The latest consumer digital cameras offer 1,600 x 1,200 resolution. Although this is perhaps half the resolution (on each axis) of a high-quality 35-mm negative, it is at least as good as the quality achieved by a typical autofocus camera and one-hour processing. Good quality prints can be made up to 8 x 10 inches, meeting the needs of most consumers.

I won't go back to film--but I'm not a typical photography consumer. The learning curve and the number of separate items I had to buy, as well as the cost, say this technology isn't ready for the mass market.

Some problems are easily fixed. For example, the Nikon 950 I purchased ships with nonrechargeable alkaline batteries. For a $1,000 device that eats batteries for lunch, this is inexcusable; nonrechargeable batteries cost as much as film, have to be constantly changed, and contribute to an ongoing ecological disaster. NiMH batteries solve the problem.

The next step is a big memory card. The camera comes with a puny 8M card. An 80M compact flash card, for about $250, holds 160 pictures--plenty for all but the busiest vacation days. Then there is the USB flash-card reader, another $80. After about $1,400, the camera package is complete--but there's plenty more to be spent on software and storage. Clearly, this is an expensive setup; a $200 35-mm camera can take better pictures, albeit at $10-$15 per roll for film, processing, and printing.

The digital photography experience is qualitatively different, however. Instead of taking just a few shots and hoping one comes out well, I can shoot a long series and then delete all except the best ones. I can see in the display how each shot came out and then make adjustments for the next shot.

There are, to be sure, some annoyances. Some of the camera features can be selected only through menus displayed on the color LCD, which is nearly impossible to read in bright sunlight. The camera has a small buffer, making it possible to take a few pictures in quick sequence--but then there is a delay of several seconds while the buffer is compressed and transferred to the flash card. It is frustratingly easy to miss a great moment because the camera is busy. Better buffering and background processing could improve the camera significantly.

The real joy of the camera comes at the end of the day, when a slide show of the day's pictures is just a few minutes away. Viewing pictures on-screen is much better than looking at small prints--and there is no driving, no one-hour wait, no loss of quality due to lousy processing, and no incremental cost (except storage).

The weak link in the chain remains printing. The current ink-jet photo printers are remarkably good, considering their cost, though they are slow. As long as you are a couple of feet away from the prints, they are generally indistinguishable from silver halide prints. The photo paper and the ink cartridges are expensive, however, so if you print most of your pictures, the costs are higher than for normal photo finishing, and it is a lot more trouble.

Software has a long way to go. Software bundled with cameras is generally inadequate. You must choose between cheap, simple, limited programs and expensive, complex programs; to take the high road, you need half a dozen different programs for different tasks.

Computer reliability and backups become serious issues once you're storing on your computer not only your work and your writing but also all your pictures. Losing pictures of your children because your disk crashed is unacceptable. Once faster Internet connections are more widely available, automated off-site backups will help a great deal.

Using a 35-mm point-and-shoot camera today doesn't have to be a hobby; it's an everyday activity. Digital photography is still very much a hobby. But in a few years, when today's $1,000 cameras cost perhaps $250, consumer digital photography will take off. We can only hope that by then better software will have been developed and that digital printing services will be widespread and inexpensive. Digital photography is where desktop publishing was in 1985--expensive and cumbersome, but well on its way to revolutionizing an activity and an industry. --M.S. See http://www.MDRonline.com/slater/photoage for more on this subject. I welcome feedback at slater@mdr.cahners.com.

Resources: Sprechen Sie SPEC?

The SPEC Open Systems Group will hold a SPEC Benchmarking Workshop on September 13-14 in Paderborn, Germany. The topic of the first day's session, held at the University of Wuppertal, is "benchmarking parallel and high-performance computer systems." Tuesday's session, at Siemens in Paderborn, will focus on general benchmarking. Abstracts for papers can be submitted until July 20.

Attendance at the workshop is free! (Well, you still have to pay for the airfare and hotel.) You must register in advance, however. For more information or to register, access the Web at http://www.spec.org/events/specworkshop/germany. To submit an abstract, send e-mail to mailto:specworkshop@spec.org.

Resources: Intel Tells All at IDF

Get the latest word straight from the horse's mouth at the Intel Developer Forum. The fall edition will be held on August 31- September 2 at the Palm Springs (Calif.) Convention Center. The conference includes 13 technology tracks describing Intel's PC, workstation, and server technology, including processors, system logic, and graphics.

Registration runs $995 for the three-day conference. For more information or to register, contact Intel at 888.266.7649 or click over to http://developer.intel.com/design/idf.

Resources: Recent IC Announcements

Cirrus Logic EP7209 SOC supports both MP3 standards and operates at 74 MHz; 170 mW power consumption at 2.5 V. $11.95/100,000; Sample--Now; 510.420.6691 or http://www.cirrus.com/products/overviews/ep7209.html.

CMD Technology PCI-648 standalone Ultra-66 PCI-to-IDE/ATA host controller for 3.3-V systems offers a built-in PLL and access to a 128-byte buffer per channel. $10.60/5,000; Sample--Now; 949.454.0800 or http://www.cmd.com.

Hitachi MCPSDRAM 256-Mbit SDRAM in 108-pin BGA package using multichip packaging, x32-bit or x64-bit configurations, 6-ns access time, 100-MHz bus. $105/1,000 Sample--Now; 510.215.9533 or http://semiconductor.hitachi.com