Just wanted to share some video's with you from FTF, currently ongoing in San Antonio, Texas.

The first one discusses ArmHF, with Konstantinos:

http://armdevices.net/2011/06/21/genesi ... m-laptops/

In this second video I introduce the new i.MX53 board and talk about some of the software work we've done. You also get to see the PixelQi screen :-)

http://armdevices.net/2011/06/22/genesi ... -desktops/

Thanks to http://www.armdevices.net for making the videos!

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Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

Thanks for sharing! :-)

Some very interesting info there. Keep us posted! :-)

I also spotted this from the Freescale FTF web site:

Freescale Demonstrates Breakthrough Quad-Core ARM(R) Applications Processor

"Freescale Semiconductor (NYSE: FSL) kicked off the 2011 Freescale Technology Forum Americas in high energy fashion today by demonstrating one of the industry's highest-performance quad-core applications processors. The forum's opening keynote presentation featured a live demonstration presenting the multimedia capabilities of Freescale's i.MX 6Quad applications processor."

http://media.freescale.com/phoenix.zhtm ... highlight=

Edit:
Video of this 7 days old silicon here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0lkZlDTq8Q

:-)

the MX6 demo was quite amazing and believe me, we at Genesi are really excited to start working on it.

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Steev Klimaszewski, Genesi USA Inc.
Senior Software Engineer

While the mx6 is nothing short of spectacular, I still can't believe how much better the GPU performance is on the mx53 in comparison to the mx51. I want a 53 smartbook now :/

Indeed, i.MX6 Quad looks very nice, but we need to keep in mind that if it's released in 2012, then it'll probably meet with OMAP5 and other Cortex-A15 CPUs in the market and that A9 might look obsolete by this time. The natural advantage of i.MX6 might be its integration: nice memory bandwidth, GigE etc. well, completely ignoring the fact that NVidia should have quad-core KalEl chips out in tablets for this year Christmass season...(some even predict this summer/autumn!)

So far I have only seen products with *dual* Cortex-A9, not quad? I think we will see the Cortex-A9 a lot more exploited during the coming 6-12 months before products using Cortex-A15 gets here, but who knows...

Indeed, I also expect slower A15 taking up, but in feb nvidia already told that they expect real consumer products based on Tegra 3 (Kal-El) (and tegra 3 here means quad-core including NEON!) in Q4 2011, manufacturers should starting making products in August 2011... *IF* that's the case, then Freescale might be at least 1/2 year behind at least with the real products then. This is kind of situation we see with A8 versus A9. You can for example order several developer friendly A9 based boards from competition, but from freescale just A8 -- it's a pity, since I like freescale quite a lot... :-(

I assume power consumption of the A15 will be significantly higher than the A8 and A9.
The core silicon area is much larger - also means that it's more expensive.


OMAP4 runs very hot (around 80°C under load on the Pandaboard) with just a dualcore A9 at 1 GHz. Considering the high 2GHz frequency of OMAP5 and increased complexity I guess it will be worser.
This can be a problem in Netbooks and Phones so you may not reach the full clock speed...

For mobile devices the A9 should have better power/performance ratio.


That can only be because of the memory bandwidth increase the rest has not changed too much.
Are there benchmarks?

That 300% number - is only for Povray or some other heavy FP applications like that I guess? ;-)

I only remember the 30% (1/10 of that) number posted here a few month ago which seems more reasonable.

Indeed, but going either A9 quad-core or A15 dual core also means changing the process probably from 45nm to something smaller. Certainly this is at least case for Tegra 2 -> Tegra 3 and also for OMAP4 -> OMAP5. So if you consider this you may as well stay in the same power envelope with much power SoC...

Great video Johan ! It looks really good :)

Here is another interesting item...



That is Konstantinos benchmarking armhf on the new i.mx6. The initial and basic results are astounding. More details soon, but we can say with certainty that Freescale's roadmap is headed in a very good direction.

R&B :)

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http://bbrv.blogspot.com

That's where the beauty of it (and the 'I can't believe' part in my original post) comes from - the chip had only some aspects tweaked, and yet the GPU performance benefits are impressive. That's what happens sometimes when an enhancement properly addresses a bottleneck. Yes. Speedup is 20% for absolutely ALU-bound scenarios but can go up to 90% for more 'traditional' cases.

It is indeed, if ever they would be just "little" bit faster! If they put i.MX6 Quad into something like i.MX53 Quick Start Board I would buy immediately since I need this *NOW*! :-)
Karel