gpu

GPUs and the new 'digital divide'

I spent Tuesday at Nvidia headquarters, attending the company's annual Analyst Day.

I've been to most of Nvidia's analyst events over the last decade or so, since I covered Nvidia almost from its inception while working as the graphics analyst at Microprocessor Report. These meetings are always a good way to get an update on the company's business operations, and sometimes--like this time--one provides exceptionally good insight into larger industry trends.

Nvidia has had a rough couple of quarters in the market, which CEO Jen-Hsun Huang blamed in part on a bad strategic call in early 2008: to place orders for large quantities of new chips to be delivered later in the year. When the recession hit, these orders turned into about six months of inventory, much of which simply couldn't be sold at the usual markup.

In response, Nvidia CFO David White outlined measures the company plans to take to increase revenue, sell a more valuable mix of products, reduce the cost of goods sold, and cut back on Nvidia's operating expenses.

Three things stood out for me in this presentation:

Nvidia is planning an aggressive transition to state-of-the-art ASIC fabrication technology at TSMC, the company's manufacturing partner. Within "two to three quarters," White said, about two-thirds of the chips Nvidia sells will be made using 40-nanometer process technology. (The first of these chips were announced Tuesday.)

White also acknowledged something that I've long assumed to be true: Nvidia receives "preferential allocation" on advanced process technology at TSMC. It's logical that Nvidia should get the red-carpet treatment, having been TSMC's best customer for many years, but I don't recall hearing Nvidia or TSMC put this fact on the record before.

The third notable point from White's presentation: the gross margins for Nvidia's Tegra, an ARM-based application processor--which Nvidia's Mike Rayfield, general manager of the Tegra division, says has already garnered 42 design wins at 27 companies--are much higher than I'd have guessed--at "over 45 percent." That's quite excellent for an ARM-based SoC; it's a very competitive market.

More surprises The technical sessions at the event contained their own surprises.

For example, Nvidia effectively seized control of an old Intel marketing buzzword: "balanced."

For years, Intel used to talk about… Read more

Nvidia CEO says 'Tegra,' Apple future of computing

Updated at 4:30 p.m. PDT adding Tegra, Intel, and Ion discussions.

On Tuesday, Nvidia Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said at the company's analyst day that the graphics processor will be an equal partner with Intel processors, citing Apple as an early trendsetter.

On other fronts, Huang said that the ARM-based Tegra processor is expected to account for half of Nvidia's business in a few years. He also repeated claims about Intel crimping the success of its Ion processor in Netbooks.

Huang said that "CPU-GPU co-processing" is the future of computing. (CPU stands for central … Read more

Nvidia cites ongoing 'failure' problem in some laptops

Nvidia said that some notebooks with its chips continue to have "failure" issues, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.

In the Form 10-Q filing, Nvidia stated that though it does not continue to see "abnormal failure rates" in systems using Nvidia products," some notebooks are still affected.

Specifically, Nvidia said: "We continue to not see any abnormal failure rates in any systems using Nvidia products other than certain notebook configurations. However, we are continuing to test and otherwise investigate other products," Nvidia said, adding, "there can be … Read more

Nvidia: Chips to speed Apple Leopard, Windows 7

Updated on April 27 at 8:20 a.m. PDT with additional information about DirectX 11 and correcting for Intel comments at bottom.

Graphics chips will be tapped to accelerate more tasks in upcoming versions of Apple's and Microsoft's operating systems, according to Nvidia.

In an interview Friday with Sumit Gupta, product manager for Nvidia's Tesla products, Gupta described how new programming environments will tap into the latent compute horsepower of graphics processors to accelerate software in Apple's upcoming OS X Snow Leopard and Microsoft's Windows 7 operating systems.

Graphics chips aren't just for games anymore. The trend toward general-purpose graphics processing is defined by an acronym that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue: GPGPU. But the essence of General Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units is pretty simple: use the scores--or even hundreds in higher-end chips--of processing cores inside GPUs to speed tasks that, in some cases, would be done much less efficiently by the central processing unit (CPU).

This is where OpenCL (Open Computing Language) comes in. OpenCL is a programming environment for "heterogeneous" computing. That is, computers using a mix of multicore CPUs and GPUs. Microsoft's analogous programming environment is DirectX.

Apple says this about OpenCL on its Web site. "Another powerful Snow Leopard technology, OpenCL...makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit."

Today, on a PC or a Mac, the CPUs made by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are adept at handling general operating system tasks. For instance, handling the sequence of things that must happen after the user clicks on an icon to start an application on their desktop. … Read more

Nvidia 'pro' graphics hook up with Apple Mac Pro

Nvidia aims to fortify the Mac Pro moniker with its own "Pro" graphics.

The Quadro FX 4800, packing 192 processing cores, targets professional graphics customers, including scientists, engineers, and designers.

The Mac card features a standard 3-pin stereo connector for 3D stereoscopic imaging, critical to many core professional Mac applications, Nvidia said.

The 4800 also features a large 1.5GB frame buffer (used to refresh the on-screen image) and memory bandwidth up to 76.8 gigabytes per second. By comparison, the Nvidia GeForce GT 120, which is currently offered by Apple as a standard graphics card on the … Read more

Intel: Our graphics silicon is gaining in gaming

Any gamer worth his or her salt is quick to decry gaming on Intel graphics silicon. But wait. The platform is taking off, according to Intel.

"So you want to know what's so compelling about making sure your game runs on Intel integrated graphics?" Aaron Davies, a senior marketing manager in the Intel Visual Computing Software Development group, asked in a video on the Intel Software Network Web page. "Here's your answer: Mercury Research showed that in 2008, for the first time, integrated graphics chipsets outsold discrete (graphics chips), and in 2013, we expect to … Read more

Intel details future graphics chip at GDC

On Friday, Intel engineers are detailing the inner workings of the company's first graphics chip in over a decade at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco--sending a signal to the game industry that the world's largest chipmaker intends to be a player.

During a conference call that served as a preview to the GDC sessions, Tom Forsyth, a software and hardware architect at Intel working on the Larrabee graphics chip project, discussed the design of Larrabee, a chip aimed squarely at Nvidia and at Advanced Micro Devices' ATI unit.

And Nvidia and AMD will no doubt be … Read more

Report: Nvidia hit by S&P ratings downgrade

Nvidia was hit by a Standard & Poor's ratings downgrade Wednesday, according to a Dow Jones report, adding to the graphics chipmaker's woes.

Standard & Poor's ratings services ratcheted down its outlook on Nvidia from positive to stable, according to Dow Jones. S&P cited concerns about the graphics chipmaker's sinking revenue and profitability.

The ratings agency maintains a junk-level BB- grade on the company, and S&P noted that revenues from Nvidia's recent efforts to expand into cell phones, handheld devices, and supercomputer applications is small, according to Dow Jones. Nvidia also … Read more

Intel's 'GPA' points to Larrabee

Behind the release this week of Intel graphics software looms Larrabee, Intel's future graphics chip.

First, the news. Intel announced the release of Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers (GPA), a suite of software tools that enables PC game developers to analyze and optimize game performance on Intel Integrated Graphics. This is part of the Visual Adrenaline program, launched at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco in August, which provides tools, resources and information for game developers, artists, and animators, according to Intel.

But let's be clear about one thing: not a lot of people in gaming circles are … Read more

Nvidia cites chip fix payments, nixes large event

Updated at 1:20 p.m. PDT with correction about the extent to which the Nvision conference is being scaled back.

Nvidia paid out $43.6 million to cover costs associated with graphics chip defects in its 2009 fiscal year, and in a separate development, a spokesman said Monday the company has no plans this year to hold the large-scale Nvision conference that it hosted last year.

In a Form 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Nvidia said it paid $43.6 million in fiscal year 2009 "in deductions towards warranty accrual associated with incremental repair and … Read more