Computex 2016: ARM Press Conference Live Blog

11:54PM EDT - OK, no more questions. That's a wrap!

11:52PM EDT - CCI-550 is fully coherent so CPU/GPU can snoop each other

11:51PM EDT - Question about Qualcomm not mentioned as a partner: 'we can only talk about companies that have agreed to go public at this time'

11:50PM EDT - A73 is two wide, compared to A72 which was three wide, but improved branch prediction and other things

11:50PM EDT - Apical acquisition is a step towards mobile user experience

11:48PM EDT - ARM has been working with TSMC on 10nm for two years

11:47PM EDT - Spec 2k numbers shown were done via simulation

11:43PM EDT - Q&A session now

11:42PM EDT - Yes, it's as cheesy as last year with the watering plants and thumbs up

11:41PM EDT - Now a photo call

11:41PM EDT - A small wrap up now. A73 + G71: the new premium ARM IP

11:40PM EDT - 9 licencees on A73 already, 7 on Mali G71

11:39PM EDT - Leading partners are HiSilicon/Huawei, Marvell, Mediatek, Samsung, TSMC

11:39PM EDT - This slide shows all the ARM IP together

11:38PM EDT - (but based on 10nm)

11:38PM EDT - A73 + G71 + CCI 550 = 1.5x perf of 2016 devices

11:38PM EDT - Now for SoC and Ecosystem

11:38PM EDT - But power consumption is also down

11:37PM EDT - That's a 13-14% increase in perf for A73 over A72

11:37PM EDT - A72 to A73 on this graph looks like a 4.9x to 5.5x (compared to A7).

11:35PM EDT - Spec 2k numbers

11:35PM EDT - Compared A72 on 16nm vs A73 on 10nm

11:35PM EDT - Under 0.65mm2 per core (inc NEON and L1 cache)

11:34PM EDT - Up to 2.8 GHz, up to 30% higher perf in the same power envelope

11:34PM EDT - Now introducing A73

11:33PM EDT - More smartphone evolution in getting thin

11:32PM EDT - G71 Will be seen up to 120 Hz, up to 4K, 4ms graphics pipeline latency and 4x MSAA

11:31PM EDT - Mali G71 MP16 matches 2015 Discrete GPU Laptop in GFXBench 4.0 1080p Manhattan offscreen

11:30PM EDT - Compared to T880

11:30PM EDT - But G71 is not process fixed. Could do it in 14/16nm if a customer wanted due to improved energy efficiency and 40% better performance density

11:29PM EDT - We'll see BiFrost in 10nm chips

11:29PM EDT - First BiFrost GPU is Mali G71, a 16-shader config but scalable up to 32

11:28PM EDT - But the Coherent Interconnect (is that CCI ?) works with both clusters and the GPU in a multi-cluster environment

11:28PM EDT - ARM hasn't mentioned HSA regarding heterogeneous compute yet

11:27PM EDT - BiFrost reduces 'wirelets' between shaders, decreasing die size and increasing performance

11:27PM EDT - BiFrost focuses on efficiency, development and heterogeneous computing

11:26PM EDT - We've covered Midgard extensively before: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8234/arms-mali-midgard-architecture-explored

11:26PM EDT - following Utgard and Midgard

11:25PM EDT - Announcing BiFrost: ARM's new GPU architecture

11:25PM EDT - 'Approaching immersive experiences requires a new step'

11:24PM EDT - Now Mail: 750m GPUs in 2015, 27 new licencees in FY15

11:24PM EDT - ARM inquired Enlighten a couple of years back, it's used by a few major games developers and firms inc. Square Enix

11:23PM EDT - Video for ARM's Enlighten. Global Illumination

11:22PM EDT - Nandan Nayampally now on stage, VP Marketing and Strategy

11:21PM EDT - 'Look at another 5 years in the future: we're innovating for performance, power and new use cases'

11:21PM EDT - Compared to 2009, smartphone has: 300x GPU, 20x Connectivity, 24x Screen Resolution, 100x Compute, 5x sensors

11:20PM EDT - '>90% home UHD devices are ARM based'

11:20PM EDT - Things like CV and CNN typically requires immediate response. At the edge is important, rather than cycling via the cloud, but again, can be power hungry and might need dedicated ASIC

11:19PM EDT - 'Merging ARM and Augmented Reality: GPU for image recognition and at-the-edge computer vision'

11:17PM EDT - ARM is talking about people wanting to play console/PC titles on smartphones, being able to play a game no matter the platform. It's a lofty goal, but difficult under power restraints and gaming fidelity. Thinks like Vulkan help, but it also drives Console/PC gaming further too

11:16PM EDT - 'AAA Gaming requires each pixel to look more realistic, which requires power'

11:15PM EDT - for VR content consumption (video etc), battery will last longer, but same requirements

11:15PM EDT - Slide says 4K 120 Hz: it might be a while before we see that in a smartphone with a battery life more than an hour when VR gaming

11:14PM EDT - 'VR on smartphone needs high frame rate, high resolution, low latency'

11:13PM EDT - 'VR is a hot market'

11:13PM EDT - 'ARM seems well suited for new use cases not expected 2/3 years ago'

11:13PM EDT - 'Smartphone: the portal for machine learning, digital assistants, consumer IOT, VR, AR'

11:12PM EDT - 100M units for $30b = average $300 smartphone price? Seems high if the next 1b users are in developing areas

11:11PM EDT - Smartphone growth for 2016 should be +100M units over 2015, source: Gartner and ARM Internal Data

11:10PM EDT - A couple of years ago, ARM celebrated 50b chips shipped. In the last two years, another 25b shipped

11:10PM EDT - Mali is still #1 GPU in terms of units shipped

11:09PM EDT - Today's talk is focusing on mobile

11:09PM EDT - 'Smartphones were still in their infancy'

11:08PM EDT - Recalling Computex 2006, talking about laptops over desktops becoming more dominant

11:08PM EDT - Rene Haas, EVP and CCO on stage

11:07PM EDT - Andrei just posted his analysis of the new A73: http://www.anandtech.com/show/10347/arm-cortex-a73-artemis-unveiled

11:07PM EDT - Part of the event is in English, some in Mandarin

11:05PM EDT - ARM is having a press conference at Computex, and Billy and I are here for it. Almost ready to start!