Article: ARM Goes 64-bit
By: Doug S (foo.delete@this.bar.bar), November 17, 2012 5:48 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
name99 (name99.delete@this.redheron.com) on November 17, 2012 3:40 pm wrote:
> I think the point about allowing implementations flexibility is VERY important,
> and thus means ARM want to make as little compulsory in the ISA as possible.
>
> Take Apple as an obvious example. Given their track record, a very obvious strategy for them would be to ship
> the Swift-64-A (or whatever they call it) with 32-bit support and ALSO to tell their iOS developers "you have
> ONE, hear that, ONE year to convert your code to 64-bit". Then, Swift-64-B simply tosses 32-bit support overboard,
> to the relief of the designers, and allowing them rather more freedom in future designs.
>
> Apple has, remember, astonishingly high rates of uptake of new OSs and new app versions, they
> control XCode, and they can easily do things like refuse to allow new code in the App store
> that doesn't come with both a 32-bit and 64-bit binary. They can even do things like, at app
> install/update time, strip out the unnecessary binary so as not to waste flash.
>
> MS apparently could do the same thing with Win RT, but historically they have not
> had their act together enough to do so. Android..., yeah, good luck with that.
>
> Meaning is: you have one partner that REALLY wants to ditch 32-bit ASAP, and other partners
> that want to keep it for a long time. It makes no sense for ARM to privilege one of these
> over the other. (And they will undoubtedly benefit from the halo if Apple CAN use ditching
> 32-bit to make a chip that's substantially faster, and makes ARM as a whole look good.)
I agree with you that Apple will have a much easier time converting to 64 bit ARM. Not only for the reasons you suggest about extremely high OS update rates, control of the dev environment and app store, etc. but also because they have no low end market.
Android OEMs can't just switch to 64 bits overnight because while they sell plenty of Galaxy S3s and the like, the market for low end phones is larger than the market for high end phones. That's because most of the recent growth and almost all the remaining growth in the smartphone market is from people upgrading their cheap feature phone to a cheap smartphone. They will have no choice but to sell these people low end phones, because they can't afford/don't want to pay for high end phones. So they'll have to support 32 and 64 bits simultaneously for quite a while, until the added cost of a 64 bit CPU is essentially zero.
I believe you also overlook one thing in the argument you seem to be making that Apple wants 64 bit ASAP while Android OEMs are in no hurry. Apple won't go 64 bit until they have a reason to, and that reason will be dictated by wanting to put >4GB in a device. I think they're a few years from doing that on iPad, let alone iPhone. I don't think there's anything inherent in ARM64 that would result in faster processors, unlike in the x86 world where the additional registers were a big deal for such a register starved chip in its 32 bit form. Apple isn't going to introduce a new model and tell its customers they should buy it simply because it has a 64 bit CPU, unless that 64 bit CPU translates into some benefit to the user experience they can point to "it is good at xxx because it has a 64 bit CPU".
On the other hand, Android vendors, all using nearly identical software, have to compete with each other almost exclusively on the basis of hardware, and thus have reason to switch to 64 bits - even if they don't need it. After all, they're shipping phones with four cores now, which is pretty pointless for a phone. They'll be falling all over themselves trying to be the first to market with a 64 bit phone, and market it as a must have feature in a high end phone, like they are doing today with quad core CPUs.
> I think the point about allowing implementations flexibility is VERY important,
> and thus means ARM want to make as little compulsory in the ISA as possible.
>
> Take Apple as an obvious example. Given their track record, a very obvious strategy for them would be to ship
> the Swift-64-A (or whatever they call it) with 32-bit support and ALSO to tell their iOS developers "you have
> ONE, hear that, ONE year to convert your code to 64-bit". Then, Swift-64-B simply tosses 32-bit support overboard,
> to the relief of the designers, and allowing them rather more freedom in future designs.
>
> Apple has, remember, astonishingly high rates of uptake of new OSs and new app versions, they
> control XCode, and they can easily do things like refuse to allow new code in the App store
> that doesn't come with both a 32-bit and 64-bit binary. They can even do things like, at app
> install/update time, strip out the unnecessary binary so as not to waste flash.
>
> MS apparently could do the same thing with Win RT, but historically they have not
> had their act together enough to do so. Android..., yeah, good luck with that.
>
> Meaning is: you have one partner that REALLY wants to ditch 32-bit ASAP, and other partners
> that want to keep it for a long time. It makes no sense for ARM to privilege one of these
> over the other. (And they will undoubtedly benefit from the halo if Apple CAN use ditching
> 32-bit to make a chip that's substantially faster, and makes ARM as a whole look good.)
I agree with you that Apple will have a much easier time converting to 64 bit ARM. Not only for the reasons you suggest about extremely high OS update rates, control of the dev environment and app store, etc. but also because they have no low end market.
Android OEMs can't just switch to 64 bits overnight because while they sell plenty of Galaxy S3s and the like, the market for low end phones is larger than the market for high end phones. That's because most of the recent growth and almost all the remaining growth in the smartphone market is from people upgrading their cheap feature phone to a cheap smartphone. They will have no choice but to sell these people low end phones, because they can't afford/don't want to pay for high end phones. So they'll have to support 32 and 64 bits simultaneously for quite a while, until the added cost of a 64 bit CPU is essentially zero.
I believe you also overlook one thing in the argument you seem to be making that Apple wants 64 bit ASAP while Android OEMs are in no hurry. Apple won't go 64 bit until they have a reason to, and that reason will be dictated by wanting to put >4GB in a device. I think they're a few years from doing that on iPad, let alone iPhone. I don't think there's anything inherent in ARM64 that would result in faster processors, unlike in the x86 world where the additional registers were a big deal for such a register starved chip in its 32 bit form. Apple isn't going to introduce a new model and tell its customers they should buy it simply because it has a 64 bit CPU, unless that 64 bit CPU translates into some benefit to the user experience they can point to "it is good at xxx because it has a 64 bit CPU".
On the other hand, Android vendors, all using nearly identical software, have to compete with each other almost exclusively on the basis of hardware, and thus have reason to switch to 64 bits - even if they don't need it. After all, they're shipping phones with four cores now, which is pretty pointless for a phone. They'll be falling all over themselves trying to be the first to market with a 64 bit phone, and market it as a must have feature in a high end phone, like they are doing today with quad core CPUs.
Topic | Posted By | Date |
---|---|---|
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/14 12:04 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 12:44 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/14 01:04 AM |
MIPS MT-ASE | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 09:01 AM |
MONITOR/MWAIT | EduardoS | 2012/08/14 10:08 AM |
MWAIT not specifically MT | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 10:36 AM |
MWAIT not specifically MT | EduardoS | 2012/08/15 03:16 PM |
MONITOR/MWAIT | anonymou5 | 2012/08/14 11:07 AM |
MONITOR/MWAIT | EduardoS | 2012/08/15 03:20 PM |
MIPS MT-ASE | rwessel | 2012/08/14 10:14 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | SHK | 2012/08/14 02:01 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 02:37 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/14 03:57 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 04:29 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 04:44 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 05:28 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 05:32 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/08/14 06:06 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 05:40 AM |
AArch64 select better than cmov | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 06:08 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 06:12 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 06:25 AM |
Predicated ld/store are useful | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 06:48 AM |
Predicated ld/store are useful | none | 2012/08/14 06:56 AM |
Predicated ld/store are useful | anon | 2012/08/14 07:07 AM |
Predicated stores might not be that bad | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 07:27 AM |
Predicated stores might not be that bad | David Kanter | 2012/08/15 01:14 AM |
Predicated stores might not be that bad | Michael S | 2012/08/15 11:41 AM |
Predicated stores might not be that bad | R Byron | 2012/08/17 04:09 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 06:54 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 07:04 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 07:43 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/08/14 06:07 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 06:20 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2012/08/14 06:29 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2012/08/14 07:00 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Michael S | 2012/08/14 03:43 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/14 06:53 AM |
OT: Conrad's "Youth" | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/14 07:20 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/08/14 06:04 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | mpx | 2012/08/14 08:59 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Antti-Ville Tuunainen | 2012/08/14 09:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anonymou5 | 2012/08/14 11:03 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | name99 | 2012/11/17 03:31 PM |
Microarchitecting a counter register | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/11/17 07:37 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | bakaneko | 2012/08/14 04:21 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | name99 | 2012/11/17 03:40 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/17 04:52 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Doug S | 2012/11/17 05:48 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | bakaneko | 2012/11/18 05:40 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Wilco | 2012/11/19 07:59 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/19 08:23 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Wilco | 2012/11/19 09:31 AM |
Downloading µarch-specific binaries? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/11/19 11:21 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/19 11:41 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Wilco | 2012/11/21 07:44 AM |
JIT vs. static compilation (Was: New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit) | VMguy | 2012/11/22 03:21 AM |
JIT vs. static compilation (Was: New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit) | David Kanter | 2012/11/22 12:12 PM |
JIT vs. static compilation (Was: New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit) | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/23 03:50 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/23 10:09 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EBFE | 2012/11/26 01:24 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/26 03:33 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EBFE | 2012/11/27 11:17 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/28 02:32 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/26 12:16 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EBFE | 2012/11/28 12:33 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 05:53 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Michael S | 2012/11/28 06:15 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 07:33 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Michael S | 2012/11/28 09:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 09:53 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Eugene Nalimov | 2012/11/28 05:58 PM |
Amazing! | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 07:25 PM |
Amazing! (non-italic response) | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 07:25 PM |
Amazing! | EBFE | 2012/11/28 08:20 PM |
Undefined behaviour doubles down | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 09:10 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EBFE | 2012/11/28 07:54 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | EduardoS | 2012/11/28 09:21 PM |
Have you heard of Transmeta? | David Kanter | 2012/11/19 03:47 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | bakaneko | 2012/11/19 09:08 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/11/19 03:40 PM |
Semantic Dictionary Encoding | Ray | 2012/11/19 10:37 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Rohit | 2012/11/20 04:48 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/11/20 11:07 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Wilco | 2012/11/21 06:41 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/11/21 10:12 AM |
A JIT example | Mark Roulo | 2012/11/21 10:30 AM |
A JIT example | Wilco | 2012/11/21 07:04 PM |
A JIT example | rwessel | 2012/11/21 09:05 PM |
A JIT example | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/23 03:53 AM |
A JIT example | EduardoS | 2012/11/23 10:13 AM |
A JIT example | Wilco | 2012/11/23 01:41 PM |
A JIT example | EduardoS | 2012/11/23 02:06 PM |
A JIT example | Gabriele Svelto | 2012/11/23 04:09 PM |
A JIT example | Symmetry | 2012/11/26 05:58 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Ray | 2012/11/19 10:27 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/14 09:11 AM |
v7-M is Thumb-only | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 06:58 AM |
Minor suggested correction | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/14 08:33 AM |
Minor suggested correction | anon | 2012/08/14 08:57 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Exophase | 2012/08/14 08:33 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/14 09:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | jigal | 2012/08/15 01:49 PM |
Correction re ARM and BBC Micro | Paul | 2012/08/14 08:59 PM |
Correction re ARM and BBC Micro | Per Hesselgren | 2012/08/15 03:27 AM |
Memory BW so low | Per Hesselgren | 2012/08/15 03:14 AM |
Memory BW so low | none | 2012/08/15 11:16 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | dado | 2012/08/15 10:25 AM |
Number of GPRs | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/16 02:35 PM |
Number of GPRs | Exophase | 2012/08/16 02:52 PM |
Number of GPRs | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/17 02:41 AM |
Ooops, missing link... | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/17 02:44 AM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 06:19 AM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | bakaneko | 2012/08/17 08:37 AM |
Brute force seems to work | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 10:08 AM |
Brute force seems to work | bakaneko | 2012/08/17 11:15 AM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/17 08:46 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 10:43 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/17 12:57 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/22 10:17 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/23 04:48 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/23 06:51 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Wilco | 2012/08/17 02:41 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/17 04:13 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Ricardo B | 2012/08/19 10:44 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/22 10:08 PM |
Unified libraries? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/23 07:49 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/23 08:44 AM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/23 05:17 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | anon | 2012/08/23 08:15 PM |
Pointer compression is atypical | Howard Chu | 2012/08/23 09:33 PM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Foo_ | 2012/08/18 12:09 PM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/18 05:25 PM |
64-bit pointers eat some performance | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/18 05:32 PM |
Page-related benefit of small pointers | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/23 08:36 AM |
Number of GPRs | Wilco | 2012/08/17 06:31 AM |
Number of GPRs | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/17 11:54 AM |
Number of GPRs | Exophase | 2012/08/17 12:44 PM |
Number of GPRs | Kenneth Jonsson | 2012/08/17 01:22 PM |
Number of GPRs | Wilco | 2012/08/17 02:53 PM |
What about dynamic utilization? | Exophase | 2012/08/17 09:30 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 10:20 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | Exophase | 2012/08/17 11:09 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | anon | 2012/08/18 02:23 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | Ricardo B | 2012/08/19 11:02 AM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | anon | 2012/08/19 06:07 PM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | Ricardo B | 2012/08/19 07:26 PM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | anon | 2012/08/19 10:03 PM |
Compiler vs. assembly aliasing knowledge? | anon | 2012/08/20 01:59 AM |
Number of GPRs | David Kanter | 2012/08/17 12:46 PM |
RAT issues as part of reason 1 | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 02:18 PM |
Number of GPRs | name99 | 2012/11/17 06:37 PM |
Large ARFs increase renaming cost | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/11/17 09:23 PM |
Number of GPRs | David Kanter | 2012/08/16 03:31 PM |
Number of GPRs | Richard Cownie | 2012/08/16 05:17 PM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/16 06:27 PM |
Oops, Message-ID: aaed6e38-c7bd-467e-ba41-f40cf1020e5e@googlegroups.com (NT) | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/16 06:29 PM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | Exophase | 2012/08/16 10:06 PM |
R31 as SP/zero is kind of neat (NT) | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 06:23 AM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | rwessel | 2012/08/17 08:24 AM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | Exophase | 2012/08/17 09:16 AM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | Max | 2012/08/17 04:19 PM |
32 GPRs ~2-3% | name99 | 2012/11/17 07:43 PM |
Number of GPRs | mpx | 2012/08/17 01:11 AM |
Latency and power | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/17 06:54 AM |
Number of GPRs | bakaneko | 2012/08/17 03:09 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Steve | 2012/08/17 02:12 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | David Kanter | 2012/08/19 12:42 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Doug S | 2012/08/19 02:02 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Anon | 2012/08/19 07:16 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Steve | 2012/08/30 07:51 AM |
Scalar vs Vector registers | Robert David Graham | 2012/08/19 05:19 PM |
Scalar vs Vector registers | David Kanter | 2012/08/19 05:29 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Baserock ARM servers | 2012/08/21 04:13 PM |
Baserock ARM servers | Sysanon | 2012/08/21 04:14 PM |
A-15 virtualization and LPAE? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/21 06:13 PM |
A-15 virtualization and LPAE? | Anon | 2012/08/21 07:13 PM |
Half-depth advantages? | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/21 08:42 PM |
Half-depth advantages? | Anon | 2012/08/22 03:33 PM |
Thanks for the information (NT) | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/22 04:04 PM |
A-15 virtualization and LPAE? | C. Ladisch | 2012/08/23 11:12 AM |
A-15 virtualization and LPAE? | Paul | 2012/08/23 03:17 PM |
Excessive pessimism | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/23 04:08 PM |
Excessive pessimism | David Kanter | 2012/08/23 05:05 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Michael S | 2012/08/22 07:12 AM |
BTW, Baserock==product, Codethink==company (NT) | Paul A. Clayton | 2012/08/22 08:56 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Reinoud Zandijk | 2012/08/21 11:27 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Robert Pearson | 2021/07/26 09:11 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2021/07/26 11:03 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2021/07/26 11:45 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | dmcq | 2021/07/27 07:36 AM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | Chester | 2021/07/27 01:21 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | none | 2021/07/27 10:37 PM |
New Article: ARM Goes 64-bit | anon | 2021/07/26 11:04 AM |