It sort of sounds like two chips, CPU and FPGA in a package, which doesn't make much sense to me.
Still not clear if it's one chip or two.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
economy
AFAIK, Intel's high-end processors have been multi-chip for a while now. I suspect it's separate chips.
There sure is a lot of technobabble in what could be a straightforward article.
-- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services
Probably two chips, stacked together.
"By sticking an FPGA on top of a Xeon and linking it via Quick Path Interconnect tech, Intel reckons it has a compelling product for large customers."
Brings back bad memories: Intel used to make FPGAs in the early 1990s (iFX780). I needed one for a project and I thought it's safe to go with Intel, and then they canceled the whole product line.
AT&T and TI and maybe Motorola tried the FPGA business, too.
Intel has been known to cancel chips while still at the sampling stage. Annoys people.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
I don't design in Intel parts. Ever. For just that reason.
-- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services
economy
Intel announced Stellarton in 2010 or 2011. It married an E6xx Tunnel Creek Atom SoC with an Altera FPGA in the same package (different die). They had E6xxC part numbers.
A quick check on Intel's website didn't find any that aren't marked EOL.
The E6xx Atoms (without FPGA) are still available.
Regards, Allan
What part of "Xeon E5-FPGA hybrid chip" don't you get? A hybrid is multiple die on one substrate.
This is nothing new. Intel and Altera have been proposing this for years. It is interesting that it seems to be more real now with power reduction goals in the server market as the target. We'll see.
-- Rick
I don't, mainly because they have no idea how to build (and market) anything outside of vanilla x86. Their prices are astronomical.
And its not that hard to guess that the FPGA vendor might be Altera. Especially after this announcement
The interesting part will be how deep the integration is, its easy to get thousands of signals with very low power in 2.5/3D technologies.
--Kim
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