Legendary Qualcomm, Apple, and Nuvia alumni form new CPU startup — Nuvacore promises to 'rewrite the rules of silicon'
Posted by -protonsandneutrons-@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 47 comments
Moral_@reddit
How do they plan to get acquired? If Arm gives them an ALA (I'm doubtful) then it's going to be the most Arm heavy ALA in a way that you couldn't acquire them without getting screwed (either losing access to IP - like what they wanted to do to Qualcomm- or the transfer fee is going to be ridiculous).
With Arm also competing in server CPUs now there is no incentive to give an ALA. Certainly Qualcomm's server CPU will be faster/cheaper than what arm can products, and I expect Nuvacore's to be competitive with QC's sever core as well.
nittanyofthings@reddit
Since they promise total clean sheet design, there isn't much to be gained by using ARM ISA.
Moral_@reddit
Yep you nail it on the head, and that was mostly my point, it's probably going to be RISC-V based.
Top_Requirement8545@reddit
Honestly, Qualcomm buying Nuvia for around $1 billion was a steal. Whatever company acquires Nuvacore is going to pay a huge premium.
Gwennifer@reddit
Honestly unless Nuvia was getting a sweetheart deal of the century (which afaik they did, they basically get to be their own bosses inside Qualcomm from what I've read?), Nuvia massively undervalued themselves.
It's the kind of deal that'd pay for itself in both actual costs saved & value created in less than 5 years.
Exist50@reddit
Relatively few HW startups have managed a successful exit without diluting themselves to hell. Given where they were at, still wasn't a terrible outcome.
Top_Requirement8545@reddit
I do have to say, though, Cristiano fumbled the advantage Qualcomm had with Nuvia. Maybe due to the ARM lawsuit, but they killed the first Nuvia ARM server CPU. They're working on a second Nuvia CPU, which is technically Qualcomm's third attempt at an ARM server CPU. Now, with the current huge server CPU demand, Qualcomm might be too late to the party.
a5ehren@reddit
I don’t understand how these guys can work at all these places and not get sued into oblivion
Exist50@reddit
Because most of what you need to build a CPU exists in academia. There's relatively little proprietary knowledge.
intronert@reddit
I suspect that a lot of “small” optimizations are not in academia. Many years ago, my company almost had a major product line shut down because of a circuit patent where one wire had two functions.
dr3w80@reddit
Non compete in California is non existent.
intronert@reddit
But they still have to navigate prior art and patents.
bookincookie2394@reddit
I haven't seen any of the recent CPU startups get in trouble with patents. Doesn't seem like biggest issue.
Exist50@reddit
Well Rivos and Nuvia both had problems with Apple.
bookincookie2394@reddit
Those were mostly about trade secret theft, no? Didn't see anything to do with patents in those cases.
Exist50@reddit
True, though was lumping that under "prior art" vis-a-vis the OP's comment.
intronert@reddit
Well, they have to actually ship products before the reverse engineering and lawsuits can begin. :)
bookincookie2394@reddit
Patent infringement cases for CPU core microarchitectures just seem very rare in general. There are only a couple cases that I could find in the past decade, and all were against the largest players. I think that CPU startups (especially those just doing core µarch) will be fine.
intronert@reddit
I’ve had patent attorneys tell me that what they REALLY want is to just be able to open the competitor’s data book and read the patent violation, so they don’t really have to work for it.
jc-from-sin@reddit
Patents which have expired.
intronert@reddit
It takes like 17 years for that to happen.
jc-from-sin@reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1gpssxy/x8664_patents_today/
bazhvn@reddit
Gerald Williams did got sued by Apple tho?
VastTension6022@reddit
Ex-Ex-Ex-Apple Engineers Create Nu-Nuvia?
Geddagod@reddit
in before it's firestorm v3 lol
FS_ZENO@reddit
It will be: ex apple engineers oryon vs ex apple engineers nuvacore, who can get closer to apple's perf with only knowledge from firestorm?
Exist50@reddit
It's not like they haven't learned anything since?
FS_ZENO@reddit
Of course, it was half said as a joke. Qualcomm/Nuvia team has of course, done more to oryon than it just being firestorm since afterall, firestorm is an old arch in the current gen standards.
monocasa@reddit
About five years of unreleased microarchs would have been in progress when they left Apple.
DerpSenpai@reddit
this is the same people. Now it's pupil vs master being NOVACORE the master.
VastTension6022@reddit
What are the chances they get acquired again for consumer CPUs and create a nu data center focused start up?
DerpSenpai@reddit
high but a lot lower than last time because now they are loaded in cash
lijmlaag@reddit
What are the chances that this is their objective?
bazooka_penguin@reddit
No this is Nuva(core). Totally different thing.
77ilham77@reddit
So, new Nuvia.
dakjelle@reddit
How long to develop a new cpu
How long to develop the needed tools to support the cpu
How long before it hits silicon
How long before it's running software anywhere?
And how much will the rest of the CPU/NPU/GPU world develop in the meantime..
Seems like a bold move, i hope they succeed !
monocasa@reddit
Four to five years traditionally.
And I will say that these people are quite aware of what the current internal roadmaps look like, so they should be able to catch the ball where it's going to be.
PhonesAddict98@reddit
This will probably end up being another snatch, in the mad pursuit of tech companies to get their hands on the best of the best. What are the odds that this startup ends up being acquired by Samsung in the next year or two, like Nuvia was by Qualcomm.
Their Exynos needs a Hail Mary moment and this is the perfect opportunity for them, with the current rumours alluding to them making a return to custom cpu cores again in the next year or two and it seems this year their chipset is actually putting up a fight. I have a feeling they might be aiming at snatching a good cpu design startup to fast track their transition to custom silicon and reduce dependence on Qualcomm.
K33P4D@reddit
Yeah cool, but will these companies preserve the nature of open computing principles?
Will they put up an even higher wall to prevent consumers from having any choice in hardware and software?
Vaddieg@reddit
i hope they will bring RISCV to life
FieldOfFox@reddit
In before they’re sued by Arm for being too competitive
Geddagod@reddit
Frankly looking at how competing Oryon cores look against the X925 and C1 Ultra, I don't think ARM should be too scared.
nbiscuitz@reddit
the receptionists sure can rewrite whatever rules they want.."on mondays, all silicons needs to be facing east!"
nanonan@reddit
Nice crew they've put together, something decent is likely to eventuate but that article was all just a load of marketing BS with zero substance.
nittanyofthings@reddit
I wonder if they'll put any thought into making it rad hard, for the orbital AI dreamers.
Ploddit@reddit
More fingers into for the AI honey pot.
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