>> Apple's patent on Interleaved memory

> It is that damn Sony patent on interleaved memory that is to blame.
> A-Eon must be paying a huge royalty to Sony

Did Sony buy Apple overnight? ;-)

> Wow!
> http://investor.appliedmicro.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=78121&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1622781&highlight=
> Hard to believe they have the resources to create this.

It's been revealed that Applied Micro's development of X-Gene went similar to how they had the Titan core developed before, i.e. they commissioned another company to do the actual development, only that for X-Gene it's been Veloce instead of Intrinsity.
In the process, Applied Micro has decided to acquire Veloce including its development team. Details:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312512164604/d334600dex992.htm

Btw, funny statement by Applied Micro's CEO:

"32-bit ARM has been around for 10 years."

(truth: ARM went 32-bit with ARMv3 in 1992, so 20 years ago.)

That does look like a significant shift in the company's focus.
I hope it doesn't backfire on them.

> That does look like a significant shift in the company's focus.

Indeed. I'm eager to know if they plan on abandoning Power Architecture completely, and I'm inclined to believe that Mamba will stay their "fastest" (if you can even say that for 1.2 GHz) Power Architecture chip.

> I hope it doesn't backfire on them.

They're probably aware of the risk, and it seems it's not been all roses so far with X-Gene:

"As of September 30, 2011, the performance milestones and delivery schedules set forth under the merger and other agreements are not considered probable of being achieved. [...] Our arrangement with Veloce may not result in the development of any new technologies or products. Moreover, products we have recently developed and which we are currently developing may not achieve market acceptance. If these products fail to achieve market acceptance, or if we fail to timely develop new products that achieve market acceptance, our business, financial condition and operating results will be materially and adversely affected."
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312511298029/d236770d10q.htm

I'd have to say that i completely agree with your assessment Andreas.
Since their failure to bring Gemini to market, they have been struggling to develop an advanced PPC.
So far they have not fared well.

Hopefully they will have more luck with this.

Applied Micro have been chips for servers for years so it's more of an extension to their market than a completely new one. That said changing from a HD or I/O controller to a main application processor with a different and completely new architecture is quite a jump.


OTOH here's something new for you:

Hard macro for quad core A15 @ 2GHz

I would hardly call low end PPC designs licensed from IBM to be server components.

> low end PPC designs licensed from IBM

To be fair, in Applied Micro's Power Architecture chips the only things licensed from IBM are the main cores and the processor local bus. Everything else (and there's much more to a SoC than the main cores and their local bus) is either Applied Micro's own IP or licensed from others than IBM. For instance, there's some significant ARM IP already inside their Power Architecture chips, starting with the PPC460EX, and even more so in the PacketPro family:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=199
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=210

Fair enough Andreas, but "server components".
Maybe network controllers, and I/O components, but that's pretty removed from the strong CPU design.

> Fair enough Andreas, but "server components".

That's not my claim but minator's, and I purposely didn't refer to that as I don't know whether or not Applied Micro's chips find use in servers as "HD or I/O controller".

Quote:

The main CPU is not the only component in a server.
Any component in a server is by definition a server component.

I went to a talk by then AMCC at Power.org back in 2005 and they were talking about RAID controllers or suchlike. Not the main processor, but still a server component nonetheless.

My point is they are already active in the server market. It's not completely new to them.

Valid point.
I don't think I've paid much attention to the products they make outside of their PPC processors.
Obviously, if they can manage to invest about half a billion dollars into ARM product development, they've been more successful then I was aware of.

> if they can manage to invest about half a billion dollars into
> ARM product development

That is not quite what is happening in this particular case:

----------
Christian Schwab - Craig-Hallum Capital Group - Analyst
We spent $59 million so far. We are going to spend $60 million more, we’re going to spend $120 million. If they hit their milestones, we’re going to spend another $75 million. Which is $195 million. Is that right?

Bob Gargus - Applied Micro Circuits Corporation - SVP, CFO
Yes. [...] Also to put it in perspective, all of the research that we have done of outside functions have indicated that to develop a core from scratch would be a $400 million to $500 million type of investment, minimally, and we are doing that for significantly less.
----------
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312512164604/d334600dex992.htm

>>We spent $59 million so far

Ah, yes, that is quite a bit less..

> Ah, yes, that is quite a bit less..

Indeed. And apparently, they also assess the sum of "$195 million" they plan to spend on the whole project as being "significantly less" than "$400 million to $500 million".

We can only hope they've covered their investment better then they did with Intrinsity.
It wouldn't do to have somebody pull an "Amiga" on them and buy out their interests.

> We can only hope they've covered their investment better then they did with Intrinsity.

I think they have now as I don't recall they had a merger agreement with Intrinsity, which is what they do have with Veloce since 2009.

> It wouldn't do to have somebody pull an "Amiga" on them and buy out their interests.

The situation is not quite comparable as contrary to popular believe, Atari's loan agreement with Amiga (I guess that's what you're referring to here) was not about acquiring the Amiga company but only about licensing its Amiga chipset, so not even about having the right to the chipset IP as it would be in the case of Applied Micro and Veloce even without their merger agreement.

Thanks once again Andreas, for the complete analysis.
This does sound like a much better thought out arrangement.

Addendum:

> "[...] we were one of the first companies to release a Power PC
> and ARM on the same die about three years ago [...]"
> http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312511300076/d253150dex992.htm
>
> does anybody know which Applied Micro chip had "a Power PC and ARM on
> the same die about three years ago"? I'm well aware of the fact that at the heart
> of PacketPro's SLIMpro subsystem is a 250 MHz ARM Cortex-M3 core,
> but the PacketPro family was only announced (not even released) in
> September 2010, which hardly qualifies as "three years ago".

What already happened "three years ago" in October 2011 has now (April 2012) happened only "in the last two years" ;-)

"In the last two years, we have implemented [...] Our multi-ISA SOC architectures: the industry’s first asymmetrical instruction set. Multi-core processors that incorporate both ARM and Power Architecture"
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312512204733/d343066dex992.htm

I've been interested enough in RaspberryPi to regularly read their news and recently followed a link to a recent review by The Register which led me to one of TheReg's earlier articles. It's also been interesting to see that Via are getting in on ARM too - http://apc.io/

> It's also been interesting to see that Via are getting in on ARM too

VIA has been doing this for some years already:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WonderMedia

I didn't know about WonderMedia and haven't given Via a thought since C7 and mini-itx form factors were newsworthy.

It was good to see an eSATA port on one of those ARM boards but you'll know it's serious when there's an ARM board with standard upgradable memory and graphics / expansion slots.

> I didn't know about WonderMedia

The VIA APC you linked to has the WM8750 SoC. In order to reflect the VIA connection better, the WonderMedia SoCs are sometimes called VTxxxx instead of WMxxxx.
Some discussion on the 8505, one of the predecessors of the 8750 (just FYI):

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&start=345

> It was good to see an eSATA port on one of those ARM boards

The VIA APC has eSATA? Btw, ARM machines with SATA:

http://trimslice.com/web/models
http://pogoplug.com/devices#pick

Just had a look back here - the ARM product I noticed the eSATA port on was the CuBox.

Update:

>> That does look like a significant shift in the company's focus.

> Indeed. I'm eager to know if they plan on abandoning Power Architecture completely

I'm confused. It seems the development agreement between Applied Micro and Veloce has been covering not only the ARMv8 X-Gene processor but also a PowerPC processor:

"This Development Agreement [...] is entered into as of May 17, 2009 [...] by and between Applied Micro Circuits Corporation [...] (“AMCC”) and Veloce Technologies, Inc. [...](“Company”). [...] WHEREAS, the Parties desire for Company to develop for AMCC one or more PowerPC processors that meet certain specifications provided in the Merger Agreement [...]. [...] “Project” means the development of a PowerPC processor as described in Section 2.1. [...] 2.1 Project. Company will use diligent efforts to develop a 40 nm PowerPC processor module as further described in Exhibit A, which meets the specifications and the requirements provided in the Merger Agreement (as such specifications and requirements may be amended from time to time in accordance with the terms hereof, the “Design Requirements”). The Company will meet all of the milestones provided in Exhibit B (the “Milestones”) by the applicable due dates specified therein. [...] 2.10 Technology Review and Project Materials. Company and AMCC will meet periodically, but no less than quarterly, to discuss the status of the Project, including the status of Milestones and to jointly perform technical review of the PowerPC processor in development."
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312512237264/d238010dex1066.htm
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312512449811/d431089dex1066.htm

Unfortunately, the exhibits have been omitted due to confidentiality. Maybe this is linked to "Viper":

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&start=444
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&start=453
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&start=612
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&start=655