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Revolutionary CPU design "VISC" to make threading transparent, solve IPC woes

Orangey

Orangey

Orangey

Soldato
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22 Aug 2008
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http://wccftech.com/amd-invest-cpu-ipc-visc-soft-machines/
http://semiaccurate.com/2014/10/23/soft-machines-breaks-cover-visc-architecture/
http://www.kitguru.net/components/c...cture-vows-2-4-times-performance-improvement/
http://techreport.com/news/27259/cpu-startup-claims-to-achieve-3x-ipc-gains-with-visc-architecture

Pick your poison, wccf has most pics.

First up it stands for Virtualized Instruction Set Computing and utilizes a new type of front bus which shuttles instructions in groups ("threads") to virtual cores which can be beefed up or down depending on workload. A virtual core can apportion resources from multiple real cores.

A startup company by the name of Soft Machines has just exited its “stealth” phase and gone public for the first time at the Linley Processor Conference. Which many startups go through to ensure that their ideas are protected and their principal goals are met before they go public.

“The VISC architecture achieves 3-4 times more instructions per cycle (IPC), resulting in 2-4 times higher performance per watt on single- and multi-threaded applications. Moreover, VISC uses a light-weight “virtual software layer” that makes VISC architecture applicable to existing as well as new software ecosystems.” The company claimed in its press release.
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Here is what the ex-Intel head honcho has to say:

CPU scaling was declared dead when the power wall forced CISC- and RISC-based designs into multi-core implementations that require unrealistically complex multi-threading of sequential applications. The VISC architecture solves this problem ‘under the hood’ by running virtual hardware threads on virtual cores that far exceed the efficiency of software multi-threading.
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Here's some more analysis:

The technology works by allowing multiple CPU cores to work on a single software thread. Something that was previously thought impossible. The company didn’t go into the specifics of how this is achieved but they state that it’s compatible with any ISA (Instruction Set Architecture). Meaning we could very well see this technology adopted by Samsung and AMD in ARM and x86 CPU architectures.

This is obviously important because it enables performance gains in single threaded applications when using multi-core CPUs. We no longer have to be as reliant on the software to be smart enough to fully utilize a multi-core CPU. And that’s indeed an exciting prospect to ponder upon if only briefly.
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Looks interesting.
 
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Isn't this what Bulldozer was originally pegged to do (Correctly or incorrectly) to an extent? It explains the modular approach slightly more (In that it'd have been 1 big core), assuming that the assumption was correct.
 
Yup when I first saw the headlines I immediately thought of CMT (clustered multi threading) which incidentally is being dropped in favour of traditional SMT (simultaneous multi threading) in Zen.

AMD are investors btw.

I wonder what this means for HSA/hUMA? Does it slot in neatly?
 
I'll believe it when I see it a lot gets promised in this industry but the closer it gets to actual retail launch the performance tends to be long way off the hype around inception. Thunderbolt, Bulldozer, physx, mantle, directx 10, that guy who promised unlimited polygons (can't remember the name) all come to mind as recent examples of this.
 
Freddie1980 said:
I'll believe it when I see it a lot gets promised in this industry but the closer it gets to actual retail launch the performance tends to be long way off the hype around inception. Thunderbolt, Bulldozer, physx, mantle, directx 10, that guy who promised unlimited polygons (can't remember the name) all come to mind as recent examples of this.
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Unlimited detail actually made another video rather recently!
 
Your being a bit unfair there :P

PhysX does as advertised its the developers who utilise the API that do an underwhelming job with it.

Mantle has a lot of promise its more held back by AMD than its actual potential.

As for Euclideon/Bruce Dell thats a far more complicated story - the tech delivers on its own merits its just not very useful for the area he is trying to push it into.


This does reminds me a lot of lucid hydra and the killer NIC though :S
 
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Rroff said:
Your being a bit unfair there :P

PhysX does as advertised its the developers who utilise the API that do an underwhelming job with it.

Mantle has a lot of promise its more held back by AMD than its actual potential.

As for Euclideon/Bruce Dell thats a far more complicated story - the tech delivers on its own merits its just not very useful for the area he is trying to push it into.


This does reminds me a lot of lucid hydra and the killer NIC though :S
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Mantle and physx does at least offer some minor tangible benefit, sometimes but mr Dell wares, lucid hydra and killer nic are the technical equivalent of snake oil imo. Where VISC sits remains to be seen but from experience from the for mentioned examples leads me to be naturally pessimistic.
 
God, the Killer NIC. I'm afraid to look it up as it will quite possibly make me feel very old. I think it was around at the same time as Ageia.
 
Martini1991 said:
Lucid Hydra wasn't that bad :p
What were the one where Nvidia/AMD could work together in Mutli-GPU? Was that more Lucid stuff?
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Lucid hydra was the one that would work with "any" number of mixed vendor GPUs and would supposedly produce hugely better performance and compatibility, etc. than SLI/CF and would apparently make them obsolete in 6 months if you bought into the hype.
 
Rroff said:
Lucid hydra was the one that would work with "any" number of mixed vendor GPUs and would supposedly produce hugely better performance and compatibility, etc. than SLI/CF and would apparently make them obsolete in 6 months if you bought into the hype.
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I only remember a handful of boards that had that.
Lucid Hydra also allowed IGP's to render with GPU's didn't they? So, you'd get an extra few FPS in a game.
 
Rroff said:
You're being a bit unfair there :P

PhysX does as advertised its the developers who utilise the API that do an underwhelming job with it.

Mantle has a lot of promise its more held back by AMD than its actual potential.
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At least try to be consistent. The problems with Mantle are what plague PhysX too, because it's nVidia that are in the way of it.

Things being proprietary result in this sort of thing. This is why PhysX never really delivered, it's used as a check box feature to make people feel like they are getting more for their money.

I actually love the concept of PhysX as well, but the execution is just awful. You can't blame PhysX's issues on developers and ignore that Mantle is in the same boat.

There really is very little difference between them in this sort of context.

As for the topic, it really does sound too good to be true, especially given the numbers they're quoting, but if it is, oh LAWD.
 
Martini1991 said:
I only remember a handful of boards that had that.
Lucid Hydra also allowed IGP's to render with GPU's didn't they? So, you'd get an extra few FPS in a game.
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Yeah, I remember some MSI ones. A load of fuss was being made about them, and it turned out to not be much more than a wet fart, which was quite a let down.
 
It was the Big Bang, I remember the hype, then it kind of just went away quietly. However scaling has gotten amazingly good since then, a shame that mixed vendor seems doomed to be nothing more than a pipe dream though.
 
spoffle said:
At least try to be consistent. The problems with Mantle are what plague PhysX too, because it's nVidia that are in the way of it.
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This isn't an AMD v nVidia thing :S both are more complicated examples that I just grabbed the most ready to hand explanations for.
 
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