New Intel Xscale CPU Coming

[Jason Dunn]

Thomas Wolfram just sent us an email few minutes ago, and considering the topic, I got a little excited when I read it: a new Xscale chip is coming! Now here's the interesting part: it doesn't appear to be any faster, which makes me think this is the typical Intel strategy of "release a chip to market, then fix it later". If you haven't already done so, <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,5432">be sure to read our Xscale article on the subject</a> - you'll find it interesting. This solidifies my opinion that the bulk of the speed issues we're seeing with the Xscale-based Pocket PCs are due to issues and limitations with the Xscale chip itself, not a lack of software optimization. Thomas writes:<!><br /><br />"Intel has filed a Product Change Notification (Change Number D0102973) announcing a new stepping C1 of the XScale PXA250 processor. According to this document there are both functional and errata fix differences between the previous PXA250 steppings and the new PXA250 C1 stepping. It states that then new stepping is a new die and that hardware changes in the target system are required to take advantage of the new enhancements/features. It lists following new enhancements/features to previous releases:<br /><br />• Hardware Universal Asynchronous Receiver / Transmitter (HWUART)<br />• Low Power SDRAM Mode Register Set Configuration Register<br />• 400 Run Mode / 200 PxBus<br />• Core Clock Configuration Register (CCCR)<br />• Core Phase Locked Loop<br />• UDC Control Function Register (UDCCFR)<br />• NSSP<br /><br />Intel as assigned a new processor ID to the C1 stepping too. A detailed description of the enhancements <a href="http://developer.intel.com/design/pca/applicationsprocessors/specupdt/278534.htm">will be available January 31, 2003.</a> In the inital version of the document the new C1 stepping of the PXA250 was renamed to PXA255. But the current, third revision of the document dropped the PXA255 designation and states only: 'PXA250 C1 is Intel's manufacturing designation for the new stepping. The formal Marketing name will be announced no later than the end of Q1'03'. The Product Change Notification can be found <a href="http://developer.intel.com/design/pcn/Processors/D0102973.pdf">on Intel's Web site.</a> I think this could suggest that Intel plans to market the new XScale stepping as a kind of "improved XScale" (that is in addition to the PXA261/262 versions for mobile phones) maybe even under a new name, by end of Q1."

[ExtremeSIMS]

Shame we can't just slap a new micro-socketed CPU in our PDAs.

[jornadaholic]

well... i was gonna buy an axim in a few weeks guess ill wait awile now

[EvilOne]

Hopefully this new line will get some speed outta these chips so I can finally buy a new PDA :wink:

[danmanmayer]

Everyone talks about Xscale problems but from what i have read the slower bus speed is what really makes the Xscale perform equal or as slow as a 206 strong arm. So lets see the enxt pocket pcs with Xscale and a higher bus speed... Does everyone relize it has been since late 1999 or 2000 that we have had the max speed of the 206 mhz strong arm. Pocekt PC speed hasn't improved since that first 206 mhz IPAQ... that is a very very slow growth in a market... Doees this effect why people aren't buying as many pocket pcs as growth would predict? (I don't know but why upgrade to the newest ipaq's when there not faster and you still need the sleeve for about everything anyways... about all that is new is integrated wifi... or pocket pc phones... and that isn't a very impressive jump for 2 years of technology... The POCKET PC HARDWARE HAS LET ME DOWN FOR AWHILE NOW!

[smittyofdhs]

what's the point? the current xscale offer nothing to the end user so why would we want another version of the chip and/or a faster chip? As it's been documented already, the current xscale processor has not offered any performance value over the strongarms.

[DrtyBlvd]

mmm - I confess that's my limited understanding too - :D - anyone care to expand on the 'Why' aspect??

[Janak Parekh]

what's the point? the current xscale offer nothing to the end user so why would we want another version of the chip and/or a faster chip?
That's like asking "the Pentium Pro is slower than the Pentium, so why bother adopting the Pentium II?" The answer might be, "Intel finally fixed the damn thing and it runs fast enough". Let's hope. :)

--janak

[Fishie]

Janak:The answer might be, "Intel finally fixed the damn thing and it runs fast enough". Let's hope.


Yes Janak, I was talking with that flying pig last night and he totaly shared that sentiment :D

[Janak Parekh]

Yes Janak, I was talking with that flying pig last night and he totaly shared that sentiment :D
Hey, hey, they did it, mostly, with the PII. Let's not assume that all the pigs fly. We haven't counted them all just yet. :lol:

--janak

[shindullin]

If the new chip makes things even 10 to 20% faster, it would be worth it. But more intriguing is the news that Samsung and TI are thinking about releasing ARM5 chips for PPC. If they manage singificantly better performance, who cares what X-scale can do.

[smittyofdhs]

If the new chip makes things even 10 to 20% faster, it would be worth it. But more intriguing is the news that Samsung and TI are thinking about releasing ARM5 chips for PPC. If they manage singificantly better performance, who cares what X-scale can do.


remember before the current xscales came out..... everyone was all for them because they would offer faster speeds.... yeah, and where are we today? SLOWER

Also think about this...what about those poor people who just bought an xscale device thinking it would be faster, and now Intel puts out another chip that actually ends up faster. End result = tons of pissed of users....

[shindullin]

I guess my point was that competition was coming and with it the fairly reliable promise of better products (aka faster chips). I doubt intel would have much incentive to fix the current xscales if they didn't have the prospect of competitors coming out with better arm based chips in the near future. Why bother if no-one is breathing down your back? Just focus on the next generation chip that you intend to release in two or three years. On the competitor side, why bother making a new chip if you can't get OEM's to adopt it? and why adopt a new chip design with it's associated new design and manufacturing costs if it isn't faster and thus more likely to sell than you competitors. It all comes down to faster (in the REAL world, not just on software benchmarks) chips for us, and that's a good thing.

[Fishie]

Wel there IS pne things the XScale´s trounce Strongarm at, batterylife.
The XScale needs far less power to get its juices flowing and that in itself is a good thing.

[smittyofdhs]

Wel there IS pne things the XScale´s trounce Strongarm at, batterylife.
The XScale needs far less power to get its juices flowing and that in itself is a good thing.

yes this is totally true and a fact that most forget about.... thx for the reminder :)

[geez]

shindullin is absolutely right. With all the heat that Intel got for the lame performance of the first XScale, why the heck would they be dumb enough to release another one with equally bad performance when Intel's competitors are planning to crank out better chips?

I can definitely understand why a lot of us out there are being pessimistic about this, but what's the worse that can happen? Even if the new chip is crappier than the old one, OEMs can just stick to the old XScale or StrongARM or move to new chips from Samsung. And if they do turn out to be better, then we'll get fast hi-performance chips with low battery consumption. No complaints here! :wink:

[Duddy]

Well, I got an Axim and am very happy with the device. I also know that Pocket PC 2003 will be optimized for the X-Scale. When the upgrade is released, I wil be able to show off the TRUE power of the Dell Axim:D

[rein]

:( Darn it, I just bought 2 new pocket pc's. At least they were Axims and cheap. My daughter is wanting one, guess I could pass my Axim on to her if another moderate priced one comes along.

So, even if they do come out with this newer, supposed to be faster X-scale, how long before we see it in product? Are we talking 3 months from now or a year? If it's close to a year away, even if it is faster, I wouldn't feel cheated in the least since I expect much faster and cheaper (or as cheap) Pocket PC's to be out by then. However, if it is only a month or two away and current Pocket PC's are revised and use the new chip I will be a little unhappy.

[vagelis]

• 400 Run Mode / 200 PxBus


Unless I'm mistaken, this denotes that we're going from a 100 (or a 103 in case of a StrongARM) to a 200MHz Bus. That is a two-fold increase in system bus speed.

Most XScale speed issues have been linked to this.
Is is then conceivable that the overall speed boost could be a 50 to 100% increase in operations that are memory/system bus intensive.
This would also require re-engineering the rest of the components (RAM and supporting silicon).
Most manufacturers will have to issue new devices to handle this.

The news however, are promising.
This could justify a round of upgrades for the hard core techies.
Too bad HP just released their 54xx series.
I guess we'd have to wait for their 55xx series now :)

And all for just under $900 8O

[jornadaholic]

Everyone talks about Xscale problems but from what i have read the slower bus speed is what really makes the Xscale perform equal or as slow as a 206 strong arm. So lets see the enxt pocket pcs with Xscale and a higher bus speed... Does everyone relize it has been since late 1999 or 2000 that we have had the max speed of the 206 mhz strong arm. Pocekt PC speed hasn't improved since that first 206 mhz IPAQ... that is a very very slow growth in a market... Doees this effect why people aren't buying as many pocket pcs as growth would predict?

i think your right for the most part but i also think the reason why people arent buying pocket pcs is because of the fact that they cant be upgraded with the newest processor like ur desktop can you have to go out and buy a whole new device which until recently could cost from 500 to 700 $ or more for a device that by next year will be a paper weight

[Dom]

As an early adopter of .NET for Pocket PC (out soon) I've found that this flagship product runs far slower at times on XScale. Since MS has invested Billions in .NET and the mobile version simply can't afford the tag of "it's slow" then my guess is .... it's going to be much faster ! Bottle necks can compound themselves so that even a small bottleneck causes massive problems with traffic due to the knock on affect. Funny now but ten years ago I had a job looking at a mainframe computer screen looking for bottlenecks LOL. If you got one and missed it then it could ruin the whole night's work. Cost 12 Million originally but think my Pocket PC is probably more powerful and it doesn't require water cooling :0) Still roll on the 1.3Ghz Samsung :0).

[vincentsiaw]

so what improvement this new xscale chip offer to end user in simplistic form :?:

[Dom]

Any application that is currently pushing the CPU to the limits should appear quite a bit faster with a doubling of bus speed. Video, database intensive apps etc.

[ppcsurfr]

New Bus speed!
New Bus speed!

Please... be true!

All I want is a 50% Bus speed... 400MHz CPU clock speed > 200MHz Bus Speed.

[JMountford]

What a crock of crap....

Why fix it? Why not just make a newer faster one?
ODMs have to add the damn thing either way. Either way the ODMs have to get shippments of the new chips. Either way I am sure the customer will get skrewed somehow, (we always do). Just get Samsung to finish their ARM chip allready or Motorola even. I would love to see some companies put the screw to Intel.

[ombu]

Hmmmm....................................................
I smell something.....................why every and each new PPC released in the last months runs on a "flaw loaded" XScale? Why does Intel a pre-pre-pre-release of a better XScale? ( :oops: Stupid me, it's the bus speed!!!) .NET talking everywhere, well, spring is coming (where did I read this? :roll: ), be aware, major changes are coming............just hope s/w developers will make it fast. So get on your knees and pray.....

:lol: It's just a joke! Is it? 8O

[dilta]

The new Xscale CPU may be twice as fast as the current Xscale CPU at the same clock speed and consume about half of the power compared with the old ones.

The 200MHz bus is also fully-implemented by the Pocket PC OEM on the next-generation devices, therefore you can get all the expected speed boost.

BTW... the write back function is officially enabled, if you know what it is..

[Dom]

I believe there were problems with write back and also running 400 Mhz machines at 400 Mhz LOL. Current 400 Mhz machines only occasionally run at 400 Mhz. This new chip is fantastic news. If there's even a 50% speed increase it will make a massive difference to the likes of Quake etc on Pocket PC, video, more effective speech recognition and most games. Maybe the PR disaster that was XScale is finally over. Sure remember that sinking feeling when I switched my XScale on and it was slower LOL. PLEASE can we get more info. Is it 6 months away ? I can't wait....

[Jason Dunn]

Also think about this...what about those poor people who just bought an xscale device thinking it would be faster, and now Intel puts out another chip that actually ends up faster. End result = tons of pissed of users....

And what if there was an actual bug in the CPU that was on par with the Intel floating point error? Some sort of hardware flaw that might be causing performance issues? Hmm.... 8O

[dilta]

It is said that the first product equipped with a new Xscale processor will be released within 2~3 months.

(hopefully CASSIOPEIA E-3000 will debut at first?!?!)

[dMores]

i don't care about pocketquake and the like,
i want my pocketloox to start programs when i click on them, not after i get back from my coffeebreak. and smooth scrolling when browsing websites or large text documents.

is that too much to ask?

[Mali]

there WILL be a speedup with 200mhz pxbus, but how much depends on the ram-speed. if intel will stick to 100mhz ram-frequency the speedup will only be small.

for example:

asus a600 @444mhz cpu /147.5mhz pxbus /147.5mhz mem:

quake demo1: 13.6fps

asus a600 @444mhz cpu /147.5mhz pxbus /73.6mhz mem:

quake demo1: 9fps

if they'll keep 100mhz memory they are idiots in my opinion.
to remove one bottleneck and keeping the other won't help much.
we will see, lets hope.

[JMountford]

I think it is all a matter of what we the consumer let the key players like Intel get away with.

I was in the Mobility chat yesterday and I think the only purpose of the chat really was to get input on what the users want to see upgraded in certain apps.

I think that is a big step in the right direction.

[guinness]

Don't the new Sony's running Palm OS 5 use XScale processors? I think those run at 200 MHz, but I wonder if those suffer from the same system bus speed woes. If Intel does come out with a XScale with a faster bus, than it is just typical Intel; in the desktop market, some of the OEM's were developing motherboards for the P IV that were going to use a 600 MHz fsb, well Intel undermined them all but coming out with an 800 MHz fsb. Even with the 3.06 GHz P IV, I think most people would have to replace the motherboard if they wanted to use HT and were using a previous P IV mobo. Come out with one product, then come out with one even better a month later to piss off the first adopters.

[jefito]

Duddy:

I also know that Pocket PC 2003 will be optimized for the X-Scale.

How do you know that? I was under the impression that CE.Net would be optimized for XScale, but we've heard very little about Pocket PC 2003.

[daS]

Just a quick note to say that Pocket PC Thoughts was credited by ZD NET for breaking the story of the new XScale processor! Nice going Jason! :D
The story is also on the headline links for anyone that uses the Netscape portal page with technology news.

For anyone interested. This is the link to the story:
Intel chip adds life to handhelds (http://netscape.com.com/2100-1103-982543.html?type=pt)

[justBe]

2 or 3 months? i think a bit longer... what about you guys?

also... an optimized ppc2003? for xscale.. i remember reading a post about microsoft focusing on the arm family only.. what about that? 8O

[Mali]

Don't the new Sony's running Palm OS 5 use XScale processors? I think those run at 200 MHz, but I wonder if those suffer from the same system bus speed woes. If Intel does come out with a XScale with a faster bus, than it is just typical Intel; in the desktop market, some of the OEM's were developing motherboards for the P IV that were going to use a 600 MHz fsb, well Intel undermined them all but coming out with an 800 MHz fsb. Even with the 3.06 GHz P IV, I think most people would have to replace the motherboard if they wanted to use HT and were using a previous P IV mobo. Come out with one product, then come out with one even better a month later to piss off the first adopters.

you can't compare a ppc to a pc , the architecture is different. on a pc the memory is usually at the same speed as the fsb, on a ppc the pxbus connects the core with the dmacontroller, memorycontroler and the lcdcontroller. if the pxbus is 200mhz and the memory only 100mhz, the memory throughput will still be low.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

It is said that the first product equipped with a new Xscale processor will be released within 2~3 months.

(hopefully CASSIOPEIA E-3000 will debut at first?!?!)
Well if history is any indicator, Toshiba would be first, but we are hearing about other PPCs from Dell and HP scheduled for release sometime around that timeframe... so who knows?

[DaleReeck]

Well, I got an Axim and am very happy with the device. I also know that Pocket PC 2003 will be optimized for the X-Scale. When the upgrade is released, I wil be able to show off the TRUE power of the Dell Axim:D

You are assuming of course that all of our newer PocketPC's will be upgradable to the new OS :) Theoretically, they should be if the ROM is big enough, but then if they were easily upgradable, we would have no reason to buy brand new units so that the vendors can suck even more money out of us.

[D.psi]

The 200MHz bus is also fully-implemented by the Pocket PC OEM on the next-generation devices, therefore you can get all the expected speed boost.

BTW... the write back function is officially enabled, if you know what it is..
Okay, so the bus speed is likely to double, what about the bus width? I understand that the word width is 32 bits, but currently we are only using a 16 bit bus. Is this a limitation of the chip or the device architecture? Will the OEM/Intel still restrict it to 16 bits, or will they upgrade it to the CPU data word width? Imagine doubling the bus speed, and the data width, that's a four-fold increase in throughput.

As for the write back function, I'd hazard a guess that it's a caching mode that can be enabled for the processor (usually have write back or write through if I recall).

[stephenv]

Argh. :x I was just about to buy an HP iPaq 545x when I saw this article about the new chips. For me, $650 is a ton of money--I do not currently own a PDA but want to buy the best available. Anyone have any idea when the 54xxx series will be updated with the new chip? Any guesses? Anyone have any advice on whether I should wait it out?

If the new 54xxx series comes out in late March, I know I'll be kicking myself....

Also, it seems like there will be two benefits to the new chip: (a) speed and (b) battery life....

I'm assuming I won't notice the speed much if I don't play games? What about the battery life though?

What do you think? any thoughts? greatly appreciate all thoughts. (Thank you)

-Steve

[daS]

Argh. :x I was just about to buy an HP iPaq 545x when I saw this article about the new chips. For me, $650 is a ton of money--I do not currently own a PDA but want to buy the best available. Anyone have any idea when the 54xxx series will be updated with the new chip? Any guesses? Anyone have any advice on whether I should wait it out?
Whenever you get a computing device, a new one is just over the horizon. That's the nature of high tech.

However, the new XScale was just announced, so I doubt we will see devices based on it for at least six months. Personally, I wouldn't wait. If you think it's worth the wait, then by the time we see machines with the new processor, something else will be announced that will seem worth waiting for. :wink: