New ARM Processor For Handhelds?

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-1001292.html?tag=fd_top">http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-1001292.html?tag=fd_top</a><br /><br />"MediaQ, a small chipmaker that creates graphics accelerators for handheld devices, is expected to launch a new chip next week that could challenge Texas Instruments and Intel. The new processor, named Katana after the Japanese sword, has an ARM processor core, onboard memory, and a series of built-in hardware processing engines dedicated to jobs such as rendering graphics or processing video."<br /><br />Apparently MediaQ has experience in handhelds as their graphics chips are "used in a number of different PDA models built by manufacturers including Hewlett-Packard, Sony and Toshiba." I assume that is the Pocket PC and Sony Clie.<br /><br />Remember that all Pocket PCs starting with Pocket PC 2002 and all Palm OS5 and higher use ARM processors. The Intel StrongARM is an ARMv4 chip while the Intel X-Scale, TI OMAP and other newer designs are ARMv5 chips. Currently, all <i>shipping</i> Pocket PCs use Intel's X-Scale except for a few of the Phone devices which still rely on the StrongARM. HP ventured out with the limited production Jornada 728 WDA and used a TI OMAP processor. If nothing else, this puts more competition into the handheld chip arena which tends to drive prices down and performance up. They are targeting the lower end of the device spectrum - PDA prices in the sub $350 range - leaving higher end devices to TI and Intel, for now. Shipments are expected in the next month, so you could see a MediaQ processor in a Pocket PC by Christmas.

[Jason Dunn]

This further strengthens Microsoft's stance to not optimize their OS for the XScale processor...

[Ed Hansberry]

This further strengthens Microsoft's stance to not optimize their OS for the XScale processor...
True. That was why I put the ARMvX info in. MS would never even consider X-Scale optimization. Nor should they. The question is ARMv5 optimization, which breaks ARMv4 (StrongARM) products.

[entropy1980]

This further strengthens Microsoft's stance to not optimize their OS for the XScale processor...
Why is that? Microsoft has already said they are making a 64-bit OS for AMD and their Opteron, why is this any different? Making optimizations are one thing complete re-writes another....Although we don't know what's in the pipe a majority of manufacturer's seemed to have standardized on X-Scale so if pushed I think we may see some concessions.....

[Sslixtis]

This further strengthens Microsoft's stance to not optimize their OS for the XScale processor...

Yeah, and we wouldn't want to optimize for ARMv5 because of all the PPCs coming to market with ARMv4 chips! :roll:

If MS had thought this way when making OSs' for PCs we would still be using Windows 3.1 if not DOS. I understand that the profit margin is much lower but for the love of (insert deity here) this is ridiculous. :twisted:


Bad MS :twak: Bad!

[heov]

I can't wait until we can start customizing our ppc's like we can pcs... We could choose processor, ram, screen type, etc. It'd be great :)

I'm just curious as to which is faster. On the palm side, the Tungsten C is faster than the Tungsten T, and although they have different amounts of RAM, one could conclude that the PXA255 Xscale is faster than the TI OMAP 1500.

What ever happened to that samsung chip?

BTW, it's the jornada 928 WDA. The 728 is the HPC :)

[rmasinag]

Just GREAT! now there is a better excuse for MS not optimise PPC200+ for ANY mobile processsor, X-SCALE was just the beginning :evil:

[Cypher]

Actually, not optimising for XScale makes a fair bit of sense for the following reasons:
1) Optimising for XScale is more than just recompiling. You actually have to re-write code so that it optimally loads into the data pipe. It's not a plug-and-grind operation. So...
2) Optimising for XScale would mean it wasn't optimised for StrongARM, OMAP, Katana, and any other ARM-based chip that potentially will be created. Which would really suck deep sewer water. The other possibility would be...
3) Optimising for XScale would mean the Microsoft would have to optimise for StrongARM, OMAP, Katana, et. al. Each time Microsoft released an End User Update, it would have to be re-optimised for each of the above, meaning you-all would complain that the EUU isn't available for your device just yet and worse...
4) That would mean you'd expect software to be optimised as well and then we'd be back at the SH3, MIPS, StrongARM scenario that PPC2K2 was supposed to do away with. (Meaning you'd buy software for your device, get another device and now, your software would be useless.)

I do agree with Jason that optimising for ARM5 would be a potentially good move. That would maintain compatibility with current ARM cores. It would lose compatibility with ARM4 cores, but did you really expect that you'd be able to upgrade your 3600 iPAQ to PPC2K3 anyway?

[rlobrecht]

but did you really expect that you'd be able to upgrade your 3600 iPAQ to PPC2K3 anyway?

Since my 3630 has just recently picked up the dreaded screen flip, I think I will be finally upgrading hardware, instead of begging for an OS upgrade. Well actually, I never assumed that I would be able to upgrade again, but what about all those 3700 and 3800 devices. If PPC2k3 was optimized for Arm5, then they couldn't upgrade.

[Ed Hansberry]

It would lose compatibility with ARM4 cores, but did you really expect that you'd be able to upgrade your 3600 iPAQ to PPC2K3 anyway?
I'd think people with iPAQ 3700s, 3800s, Jornada 56x, and people buying XDAs today would disagree with that assessment. The 3600 isn't the only StrongARM Pocket PC out there.

[PJE]

Hi,

I don't see why with the right compiler technology why Microsoft can't allow the source to be compiled for both ARMv4 and ARMv5. This code is only seen by the manufuacture/platform builder and is not influenced by the user. I would assume that only a small part of the OS is ARMv4/5 sensitive (using the 80:20 rule). I doubt very much of the OS is hand coded assembly.

When you get the upgrade, you need it to be machine specific anyway...

My 2c,

PJE

[Ed Hansberry]

Hi,

I don't see why with the right compiler technology why Microsoft can't allow the source to be compiled for both ARMv4 and ARMv5. This code is only seen by the manufuacture/platform builder and is not influenced by the user. I would assume that only a small part of the OS is ARMv4/5 sensitive (using the 80:20 rule). I doubt very much of the OS is hand coded assembly.

When you get the upgrade, you need it to be machine specific anyway...

That is for drivers and OEM specific software, which just plugs in. It was a nightmare for MS to do MIPS, SHx and ARM code with Pocket PC 2000 which is why they finally picked one code base and stuck with it. I'm not understanding why people think it is just a button push to recompile optimized for ARMv5 or how it is any different then just recompiling for a non-ARM processor. We aren't talking about an application. We are talking about an OS. It has to interface with the OAL, handle memory addressing, etc.

MS had to do the same thing with Windows 2000. Forget PPC, MIPS and Alpha. Just stick with x86. They have sort of branched again with Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP by doing 32bit and 64bit versions, and it is like maintaining two separate OSs in many respects, but the Windows team is far larger than the Mobile Device team.

I think most of the X-Scale problems we have seen are Intels fault as the PXA-255 seems to have corrected many of the performance issues. That doesn't mean MS doesn't have room for improvement or they may not tweak WMP for ARMv5. When you think about it, that is the one app (app, not OS) that could benefit. Other apps like Reader, IM, Inbox, etc. Just how fast can you read? :wink:

[PJE]

I think most of the X-Scale problems we have seen are Intels fault as the PXA-255 seems to have corrected many of the performance issues. That doesn't mean MS doesn't have room for improvement or they may not tweak WMP for ARMv5. When you think about it, that is the one app (app, not OS) that could benefit. Other apps like Reader, IM, Inbox, etc. Just how fast can you read? :wink:

I totally agree. When I was stating the OS, I should have said applications. There are certain applications (WMP as you state, IE, etc) where getting maximum performance is important. There is probably very little in the core OS where full ARMv5 optimization will have much impact.

The problem comes in that I don't use many of the core applications - I use ftxPBrowser which relies on the IE core, but I also use Pocket Informant, TextMaker, PocketMVP, RescoExplorer etc... which MAY require XScale optimization to extract the maximum performance.

Requiring each applicaton to be relased in more than one version is not realistic however, and therefore the core CPU needs to be designed to be as fast when operating in ARMv4 mode as possible, which is where the initial PXA250 fell down.

Hopefully with the next release of PocketPCs we'll see the effect of the fast memory bus become apparant. But until there is another jump in the hardware capabilities (VGA display resolution?) I'll be sticking with my Axim.

PJE