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The federal government wants to modernize 130,000 computer workstations in eight years

The 2015 launched billion dollar “IT Consolidation Bund” initiative is now set to slowly take off this year after many setbacks take up. The federal government has decided on a “sequence plan”, according to which from April 69 projects for an upgrade of the IT -Infrastructures in 69 ministries and authorities in four waves up to 2028 should be carried out.

Common programs in the cloud The aim of the large-scale project is, according to the original heise online and published in excerpts by Netzpolitik.org, server-side IT solutions for the offices involved on standardized servers of the Federal Information Technology Center (ITZBund) in the “Infrastructure as a Service “(IaaS). In other words: Common services and programs, for example for word processing or spreadsheets, as well as specialized procedures that are difficult to convert, are to be obtained from the cloud in the future , but still manageable size of around 130. 000 Jobs and 30. 000 Server. What makes harmonization so complicated, according to the authors: “In each individual authority it is necessary to create the technical and organizational prerequisites for a successful consolidation, individually tailored, to develop and implement the new IaaS target images.”

The planned “IT operational consolidation federal” (BKB) is an “important and large project of the federal government with a significant contribution to IT security and digitization” of the public administration, writes the Federal Ministry of Finance. It had taken over the project management at the end 2019, who was initially in the internal department. The Federal Chancellery is responsible for coordination, to which 2015 the government’s IT council has also moved from the Ministry of the Interior.

Failure forecast In the middle of last year, the finance department had a pessimistic interim conclusion of the 2015 Achieved drawn. In many cases, “because of the high costs”, there were doubts about participating in the project at all, it was said at the time. The effects of the corona pandemic created additional burdens in the IT departments. “This, as well as repeated public criticism,” could endanger the operational readiness of the houses. “A lack of acceptance” is likely to lead to the “failure of consolidation”.

The IT Council as a steering committee on 10. Endorsed December and on 28. The house of CFO Olaf Scholz (SPD) sees the timetable sent to the Bundestag as an “important milestone”. “Realistic and resilient planning” is the key requirement for making the initiative a success after all. The further procedure and the technical criteria to be assessed were therefore coordinated with those involved. These include, for example, the nature of the government’s IT, the project capability of the institution and questions about “mandatory technical or other dependencies” for the start of an upgrade.

For example, those responsible would have “already planned replacement of large specialist procedures “or a” reorganization of IT in authorities “included. “The planned new construction and acquisition of properties” and the associated network connections as well as the “ongoing burden” of individual offices in coping with the corona crisis would also be taken into account. A relevant evaluation scheme is not included with the report.

Several waves planned Basically, an authority project should now be “within a term of three calendar years “. This includes a three-month initialization phase and a maximum of one year preparation phase. Then two years should be available for the implementation.

It will start in the context of the 1st wave according to the overview, which should be “regularly validated and updated”, between spring 2021 and 2021 among others with the Chancellery, the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure , the economic department and important subordinate authorities. The Ministries of the Interior, Justice and Environment are planned for the 2nd wave, which runs until the end of 2024.

Between 2024 and 2027 should include the departments for work, family and health as well larger authorities such as the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and the Federal Network Agency. The Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development is the last point in the 4th wave in the outline, together with the German Patent and Trademark Office, for example. The IT at the Federal Police with around 30. 000 employees as well as at the Directorate-General for Waterways and Shipping should be consolidated over three or two waves “with an individually agreed, longer term”. Some things are still unclear The Ministry of Finance itself does not appear in the list. It is also unclear what will happen to the remaining unlisted offices. The original approach was to modernize and standardize the operating systems and computer workstations of all 180 ministries and authorities of the federal administration. The Microsoft Windows 7 operating system, which is actually no longer supported, is currently running in many offices. The federal government alone paid around for the necessary special support 2020 800. 000 Euro.

It is also still unclear whether the highest federal courts, the Federal Patent Court and the Federal Public Prosecutor General can be involved. Although capacities are “reserved” for them in the context of the 4th wave, they are provided with a footnote. Accordingly, there are “special requirements” here, since the “constitutional principles of the separation of powers and judicial independence” must be observed. It must first be clarified whether the ITZBund can do this.

The budget expert of the Green parliamentary group, Sven-Christian Kindler, sharply criticizes the slow process. “The federal government wasted an entire year planning a new order for IT consolidation,” he explained to heise online. “If the project continues at this snail’s pace, then it will not be completed 2027. Every week of delay also increases the costs. The entire project is now an indictment for digitization in Germany. ”

At the same time, Kindler reminded that the initiative should actually 2025 be on the home straight. The fact that it is now delayed by at least three more years “is completely unacceptable”. Certainly, the cost limit of 3.4 billion euros will be broken. In the meantime, “technological quantum leaps” have taken place in IT. The coordination difficulties between the three main departments involved are also becoming increasingly apparent. This increases the doubts whether the government is serious about the project.

(mho)

Windows 7: Federal government had extra support in 2020 cost almost 2 million euros

The number of computers in the federal ministries and subordinate authorities that are still operated with Windows 7 is significantly higher than previously assumed. In second gear, the federal government is now going from “at least 51. 479 Clients “on which the operating system is still running that Microsoft has been using since 14. January 2020 no longer supported for free with security updates. A year ago the lead Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) was still on 33. 000 relevant IT jobs come.

Problem bigger than known Even then it was clear that the support and migration problem would be much bigger: in In the earlier overview, five of the 12 Federal Ministries were not listed at all. Apparently it was just about the departments in which Windows 7 still plays a particularly important role.

With the significantly increased number of computers for which the federal government has to spend money on further security updates via Microsoft’s Extended Security Update Program (ESU), the necessary expenses have more than doubled: the federal government initially calculated for 2020 with fees of 700. 000 Euro, it ended up according to a heise online current answer to a request from the Green Bundestag member Konstantin von Notz at 1.9 million euros. Until 2023 should “at least around 2, 51 Costs of millions of euros arise “.

The distribution of the affected computers to the individual departments and larger authorities was broken down by the government to Netzpolitik.org. In the Chancellery and the Federal Ministries there are a total of around 14. 000 people busy. This does not include the employees in the many subordinate authorities. The Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry of Defense are particularly well-staffed departments. The latter leads the ranking of the departments on which PCs with Windows 7 are still in operation, also with 27. 326 corresponding jobs.

No Windows 7 only in the Ministry of Education The Ministry of the Interior follows in second place with 12. 800 computers that need extra support, the Foreign Office occupies third place with 10. 700 such computer. The Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure still has to pay a separate support fee to Microsoft for 5000 jobs, the Agriculture and Health departments each for around 1700, the commissioner for culture and media for 1500. At the Ministry of Economic Affairs 1118 computers. In all other areas of government and its subordinate administration, the number is below 1000. The Federal Ministry of Education is the only one that no longer uses PCs with Windows 7.

The information could still be incomplete, the government warns. The authorities and departments are in favor of a timely changeover to Windows 10 after expiry responsible for Windows 7 support. Central records are not kept. The departmental inquiry has still not been “answered by everyone”.

The Federal Ministry of the Interior deliberately does not provide any information on the IT infrastructure of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and for reasons of confidentiality at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. In the meantime, it can be seen from job advertisements that the Federal Office for Consumer Protection, for example, is still specifically looking for three IT specialists with thorough knowledge of the Windows 7 systems and is looking for.

Dependency as a problem The The authors of a study commissioned by the Federal Ministry of the Interior 2019 had already come to the conclusion that the dependence on Microsoft products in particular “leads to pain points in the federal administration”. This is “in contradiction to the strategic goals of the IT of the federal government”. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) announced at the time that he would hold talks with software providers and examine alternative programs. The use of free software should play an essential role here.

In the new plan for slow IT consolidation, however, there is no mention of open source. The Ministry of Defense remains in the recorded, up to 2028 running four waves for the harmonization of computer and server structures as well as the relocation of services to the cloud, as well as left out the Foreign Office.

(mho)

l + f: Amazon AWS, an armed security guard and a truck

Have you ever wondered how Amazon gets your data into the AWS cloud?

(Image: monticello / Shutterstock.com)

So that Amazon AWS customers do not have to upload their confidential data via insecure internet connections, the cloud provider provides a special service: Upon request, a huge one with hard drives can be parked (100 Petabyte) loaded truck in front of the company’s own data center and copies the data to the data carrier via fiber optic cable.

An armed security guard is included so that nothing happens to the data on the way to the AWS cloud server. The “modular data center on wheels” is called “Snowmobile” and can be booked for an unknown price for AWS customers.

This information comes from an interview with a security officer from Amazon AWS on the website Logicmag.io.

(of)

Patent application: The car is found dirty and goes to the car wash

Developers at the Japanese car company Toyota have devised a method by which a car should be able to determine whether it is ready for the car wash. An application for the property right for such an assessment system has now been submitted to the US Patent Office.

For the When deciding whether it is dirty, the car uses an external server to obtain information on the most recent journeys. According to the patent application, it is examined whether the car has been on a dirt road since the last wash and whether it has driven in snow or rain.

Time saving Toyota is thinking primarily of operators of car sharing with autonomous cars. They would not have to inspect the car themselves or look at images from the vehicle camera to assess whether the car should be washed. Instead, indicators would be used so that the car can automatically drive into the car wash.

According to the patent application, the car wash is also connected to the server and washes the car fully automatically. Based on the data, it is taken into account that the last car sharing customer has completed his journey and is therefore no longer sitting in the car.

(anw)

Phytium Develops Eight-Core ARM CPU for Desktops

(Image credit: Phytium)

Tianjin Phytium Technology, a China-based processor developer, has introduced its new CPU for client PCs. The new D2000 processor packs eight general-purpose cores designed for both compact desktops, a’la Mac Mini, as well as sophisticated tower machines with expansion capabilities.

The Phytium D2000: Eight Cores for Desktops

The Phytium D2000 processor is a derivative of the FeiTeng-2000/4 CPU introduced last summer. The new chip doubles the number of custom ARMv8-compatible FTC663 cores from four to eight but largely leaves the rest of the chip intact, according to HKEPC.

(Image credit: HKEPC)

Phytium’s FTC663 cores feature a four-issue out-of-order pipeline, the company’s newest dynamic branch predictor, the latest INT and FP units, and supports Arm’s ASIMD instructions to speed up floating point workloads. Each pair of cores shares a unified 2MB cache (so the eight-core chip carries 8MB of L2 cache), and all eight cores share a 4MB L3 cache.

As expected for CPUs designed in China, Phytium’s D2000 supports domestic SM2, SM3, SM4, and SM9 cryptography algorithms. Also, the D2000 supports the company’s own PSPA 1.0 security platform.

Both the FT-2000/4 and the D2000 processors have the same I/O capabilities, including a 128-bit DDR4-3200/LPDDR4 memory interface, 34 PCIe 3.0 lanes (that can be split across four PCIe 3.0 x8, and two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots), two GbE ports, 32 GPIO lanes, and CAN, UART, I2C, SPI, as well as LPC interfaces. The CPU features built-in audio support but doesn’t have an integrated GPU.

Phytium’s FT-2000/4 and D2000 CPUs use the same 32×35mm 1144-pin FCBGA packaging. They are pin-to-pin compatible, making it particularly easy for PC makers to adopt the new chip and use it with existing motherboards.

Phytium plans to clock the D2000 processor at 2.30 ~ 2.60 GHz, which is in line with its quad-core predecessor. Meanwhile, the new CPU’s TDP is 25W, up from 10W with the FT-2000/4, illustrating that the company uses a different process technology to fab the new chip.

The Mysterious Foundry

Speaking of fabrication technologies, one of the most intriguing things about the Phytium D2000 processor is which contract maker of semiconductors produces it. The new CPU is fabbed with a 14nm node, whereas its predecessor was made using TSMC’s 16nm fabrication process.

(Image credit: SMIC)

Officially, Phytium isn’t revealing the foundry that makes the D2000 CPU, but the most likely candidates are Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) based in China and United Microelectronics Corp. from Taiwan. The less likely candidates are GlobalFoundries from the USA and Samsung Foundry from South Korea.

Keeping in mind that Phytium used to have ties with the People’s Liberation Army’s National University of Defense Technology (yet it claims it is an independent company now), it is unlikely that it outsourced production of its new CPU to a non-Chinese company given the ongoing US/China trade war that has already hit Huawei and SMIC badly. On the other hand, Phytium’s upcoming 64-core S2500 processor for data centers and supercomputers will still be made using TSMC’s 16nm node, perhaps because SMIC does not have experience producing large chips using its latest nodes.

Now that we have mentioned chip dimensions, the Phytium D2000’s die size is 132 mm2, which is slightly larger than Apple’s A10 (~125 mm2) that’s made using TSMC’s 16FFC node (a very dense technology).

Good Prospects

While Phytium’s processors for server or client computers are unlikely to pose strong competition for AMD and Intel outside of China, the company is doing extremely well in Tianxia. Last year the company’s unit sales surged 7.5X year-over-year.

(Image credit: Ruijie)

As China wants to reduce reliance on foreign chips, its government and local authorities are transitioning to systems running on domestic CPUs. Last year the company sold 1.5 million CPUs, up from 200,000 in 2019. Eighty percent of these processors were sold to various government clients.

With quad-core and eight-core CPUs in its product lineup, Phytium will be able to address a broader range of desktop PCs this year, which means that it can potentially sell even more processors in 2021 than the company did back in 2020.

The first systems based on the Phytium D2000 CPUs are projected to hit the market in the first quarter of 2021, reports PC Watch.

Cyber attacks: German authorities also used SolarWinds software – only which?

In Germany too, authorities could be affected by the hack on the network software of the Orion series from SolarWinds. Accordingly, use or used 15 ministries and federal agencies at least partially or “occasionally” products of the US company, as from an answer from Federal government at the request of the Bundestag member Manuel Höferlin (FDP) emerges, which heise is online. These include the central IT service provider of the federal government, ITZ Bund, the Federal Ministry of Transport, the Federal Motor Transport Authority, the Robert Koch Institute, the German Patent and Trademark Office, the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

The list leaves completely open whether it is also the hacked software from the SolarWinds portfolio that was used. In the case of the ITZ Bund, it was only an “uncritical version” of server software and not the hacked SolarWinds Orion, the director of the ITZ Bund, Alfred Kranstedt, told Spiegel in the meantime. Consequently one is not affected. Der Spiegel had first reported on the topic.

“No unauthorized access” Regarding the question of whether unauthorized access to sensitive data was possibly carried out at the facilities mentioned, the federal government stated: “According to the current state of knowledge of the federal government, there has been no unauthorized access to systems of the federal administration via the sunburst program in the SolarWinds Orion software . ” However, the list of the institutions mentioned does not yet make “any claim to completeness” and has been drawn up with a “high expenditure of resources and extensive coordination”.

On a deployment of SolarWinds tools at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) were not disclosed by the federal government. “This could mean a disadvantage for the effective fulfillment of tasks of the BfV and the BND and thus for the interests of the Federal Republic of Germany”, is the reasoning in the answer.

Complaint about Research effort FDP politician Höferlin criticized that the federal government “still hasn’t the faintest idea where and to what extent German IT security is affected. Instead of worrying about integrity.” of their own systems and the effects on IT security throughout Germany, she even complains about the research effort for my request. ”

The malware Sunburst used by the attackers has been around at least since then Spring about infected updates for the Orion network management platform from SolarWinds on systems of up to 18. 000 customers of the service provider. The malware installed a back door there, thus initiating the remote takeover of infected systems. The same group is said to be behind the attacks that had previously successfully attacked the IT security company FireEye. Those affected included several US ministries and authorities, but also companies such as Microsoft.

Russia suspected US intelligence and security agencies are now assuming that Russia is probably behind the cyber attack. Justice Minister Barr and Foreign Minister Pompeo accused Moscow at the end of December. According to the US services, there is only a much smaller number of 15. 000 Affected persons were deliberately compromised by subsequent attacks. Fewer than ten US government agencies are affected. They are still working on finding all victims in the private sector.

The US Department of Justice announced, for example, that attackers had succeeded in opening their own office – 365 – to tap mailboxes and thus the mail traffic of three percent of the around 100. 000 Employees to tap.

In the case of Microsoft, the attackers were probably able to penetrate the software company’s networks so far that they gained access to source code. However, the damage is limited, said Microsoft. Neither one’s own security nor that of the customers is endangered, there are no indications that the company’s programs were subsequently used to attack third parties.

JetBrains software as a gateway? Reports from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times suggest that US services are now a possible link between the case and the Czech-based software company Investigate JetBrains. Accordingly, this could have been compromised in turn and served as a gateway to SolarWinds – specifically, the Teamcity tool, popular among developers, is under suspicion. It is used during software development in the team to continuously integrate changes made into the code base (continuous integration) and test them.

JetBrains boss Maxim Shafirov stated that his company neither in any way who was involved in the hack was still aware of investigations by security services or authorities. SolarWinds is a customer and also uses Teamcity, but has not contacted JetBrains regarding the hack. Pay attention to security updates and provide transparent information about them, Shafirov said. If Teamcity was used for the hack, this could also have been due to a misconfiguration of the complex tool and not necessarily to a security hole.

(axk)

IT industry demands the right to digital teaching

The Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (Bitkom) demands a right to digital education in Germany. As Bitkom President Achim Berg announced on Tuesday, many people are dissatisfied with the current education policy in times of pandemic. Therefore there should be a “legal right to digital lessons for pupils of all school types”.

Right to digital school lessons “Germany’s education politicians have probably never triggered such disappointment and alienation – among students, parents and teachers, but also in business and society. Too little Their proposals are ambitious and too old-fashioned, their decisions are too erratic, their communication is too chaotic, “said Berg with regard to the school closings in the corona pandemic.

How should digitization be implemented in our schools? How has it gone so far? This is what our series of articles would like to illuminate.

Everyone understood that at the beginning the corona crisis had to be driven “on sight”, but now after almost a year of the corona crisis there is still a lack of “a vision, strategy and future-oriented, decisive action”. That is why Bitkom is campaigning for a legal right to digital teaching. In this way, pupils should in future have the opportunity to take part in school lessons even after the end of the pandemic, for example if they cannot attend classroom lessons at school due to illness or other restrictions.

“No witchcraft” Berg complains that schools are currently unable to hold functioning digital lessons. Instead of taking action and setting up learning platforms, the federal states would continue to do everything to return to face-to-face teaching. Berg considers this to be irresponsible due to the large number of infections with the coronavirus and the type of teaching is out of date.

Every student must can be taught digitally in the current situation, says Berg. Providing functional learning platforms is ultimately “no rocket science”. It is now up to the federal states to provide appropriate server capacities and IT support for the schools. Schools, pupils and teachers should have fast, unbureaucratic access to the platforms. Examples in some schools have already shown that digital teaching works.

Insufficiently functioning digital learning opportunities In December 68, the Federal Association of the Digital Economy (BVDW) determined in a representative survey that the digital courses offered in German schools have been The beginning of the pandemic had improved little or no improvement at all. The complained 68, 2 percent of German citizens with school-age children, only 7.7 would have seen a strong movement in digital learning in schools. Overall, however, the DVDW sees this as bad evidence for educational policy in Germany. Data protection has unsettled many schools and teachers and slowed down their commitment.

With the beginning of the hard lockdown in December, some learning platforms in the federal states such as the Berlin learning area, the Bavarian portal Mebis or the Saxon version of LernSax were partially disrupted or failed completely.

The platforms are also showing performance problems. On Wednesday, for example, the Bavarian Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs Michael Piazolo wrote a letter to schools to use the Mebis learning platform less in order to avoid peak loads and a collapse of the system. Now the schools should only log in according to time slots.

Digital lessons are not possible for everyone Critics also generally see negative Impact of digital teaching. Financially disadvantaged students could not take part in digital learning as easily and on an equal basis as better-off students due to a lack of resources such as computers or tablets and internet access. Learning at home is also not possible in some families due to limited space, which increases any social conflicts within the family.

(olb)

Brief information: retail, car wash, Slack, Snapdragon 480

Retail can look back on increased sales In November the German retail trade 2020 done good business despite Corona restrictions – at least according to the estimates of the Federal Statistical Office. Including the price increases, retailers would have made 6.5 percent more money in November compared to the same month last year. However, not all retailers should have benefited equally from the development. While the sales of mail order and Internet retailers compared to November 2019 in real terms by 31, 8 percent increased, retailers for textiles, clothing, shoes and leather goods had to lose 20 Percent manage.

The car is dirty and goes to the car wash Developers at the Japanese car company Toyota have devised a method by which a car should be able to determine whether it is ready for the car wash. The patent application states that the data on journeys made is used to examine whether the car has been driving on a dirt road or in snow or rain since it was last washed. Toyota is thinking above all of operators of car sharing with autonomous cars. According to the patent application, the car wash is also connected to the server and washes the car fully automatically.

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Massive disruption in Slack resolved after hours The massive disruption in the Slack office communications service has largely been resolved. More than four hours after the first problems occurred, the US company announced that the service had largely been restored. At first there were still problems with the integration of calendars and other apps. The causes remained unclear. Slack was paralyzed for hours on Monday afternoon European time – just as the first working day of the new year began in many places in the USA. Users had problems logging in and sending messages, among other things.

SoC Snapdragon 480 with 5G and much more power One year after the launch of the Snapdragon 460 chip manufacturer Qualcomm brings the successor Snapdragon 480 for entry-level smartphones. The System-on-a-Chip is making big leaps in many ways. There is the computing power, as far as processor and graphics unit is concerned, but also the cellular network: The Snapdragon 480 transmits in 5G -Netz and should ensure an increasing spread of the standard in the smartphone price range below 31 euros.

(igr)

Mammoth project: Federal government wants to modernize 130,000 computer workstations

With the “Federal IT Consolidation” initiative, the Federal Government intends to 73 Bringing ministries up to scratch, at least from a technical perspective. Said initiative has existed since 2015 and should now come into effect six years later. The starting shot will be given in April 2021. According to the government, the completion of the timing for the implementation of the 69 Projects an important milestone has been reached. The “Sequence Plan BKB” was published on 10. December 2020 by the responsible steering committee within the framework of the 49. IT council meeting decided unanimously.

The overall responsibility for implementing the federal IT operational consolidation now rests with the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF). In addition, the BKB project was commissioned to create a new sequence plan. The aim of the project is to bring together server-side IT solutions from the authorities on standardized servers at the Federal Information Technology Center (ITZBund). The authority projects planned in the BKB project concern around 130. 000 jobs and 30. 000 Server. It is important to create the technical and organizational prerequisites in each individual authority that are necessary for a successful consolidation.

The current planning provides that all activities up to the year 2028 be completed successfully. The implementation takes place in a total of four waves. However, it remains to be seen whether this will succeed. Although the plans mentioned sound quite good on paper, the complexity is likely to lead to problems that will take up additional time. Even if the planning took around five years, not all special cases can be considered in advance.

In principle, an authority project is carried out within a period of three calendar years. A project begins with a three-month initialization phase. The preparatory phase is valid after a maximum of 10 months complete. This is followed by a two-year implementation phase. Thus the government project ends at the latest after a term of 36 months .

Market shares: AMD overtakes Intel with Ryzen 5000 in desktop CPUs

For some time now, there has been a growing trend in the desktop CPU market. Top dog Intel is increasingly competing with AMD, and recently the CPU and graphics card manufacturer has already secured some market shares. Now a new high seems to have been reached. According to the datasets of the benchmark provider Passmark, AMD managed to overtake Intel in the desktop CPU segment, at least for a short time.

Intel was still able to 2014 claim most of the cake with a market share of over 70% in this area. At that time, AMD was around 30% and could not do much to oppose the CPU manufacturer in terms of performance. That all changed when AMD 2017 brought the first series of Ryzen processors onto the market. From that point on, the desktop CPU market shares of the two rivals continued to converge until AMD took a share of 50 on January 5th 2021 . Could claim 8% for itself, displacing Intel from first place. In the meantime these numbers have changed again and AMD has fallen back to 49, 8%, but it is impressive and always a challenge to Intel.

However, the figures mentioned relate expressly to the market shares in the area of desktop CPUs. If you also look at the market for mobile processors and servers, Intel still has a huge lead. According to PassMark, AMD’s market share in the notebook area is 17%, in the server segment it is only 1.1%. Overall, AMD has a market share of 38, 2%. However, since AMD plans to be more active here in the future, it remains interesting to see how the relationships between the two companies will change in the future.

Intel’s decline in desktop solutions only recently provoked a letter from the largest investor, Third Point, to the board of the chip manufacturer. Among other things, Third Point calls for a revision of the corporate strategy in order to counteract the dwindling influence. It remains to be seen what consequences Intel will possibly draw from this in the future.

AMD thinks of a CPU with integrated FPGAs: Xilinx effect?

The acquisition from 35 billions of dollars of Xilinx opens up new perspectives for AMD and its CPUs. The company, in a patent, talks about how to integrate FPGA elements into processors to accelerate specific features or perform other tasks.

by Manolo De Agostini published 06 January 2021 , at 15: 01 in the Processors channel

AMD

AMD closed a very successful year, continuing a growth process started in 2017 with the complete renewal of the computing architectures. Among the unexpected implications there is certainly the acquisition for 35 billion dollars of Xilinx, a designer of FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) that opens up new market opportunities for the driven company by Lisa Su. FPGAs, as the name implies, are in fact very fast hardware solutions that can be reconfigured to execute certain instructions . In this sense they are different from CPUs, made up of generic units designed to execute multiple instructions.

In this sense AMD followed in the footsteps of Intel, which 2015 bought Altera to enter the FPGA market and above all to respond to the request of some customers in the server world, to which Intel offers customized Xeon processors to accelerate some workloads. AMD could do the same with Xilinx, and a patent published at the end of the year would reveal one of the possible synergies with the new acquisition.

The patent entitled “Method and Apparatus for Efficient Programmable Instructions in Computer Systems “describes a CPU with FPGA elements integrated into the architecture and able to draw on shared resources, such as floating point and integer unit registers, with x cores 86. A processor of this kind could therefore be “updated on the fly” to support new instructions as needed , without a hardware revision or a new architecture is strictly necessary.

At the same time, some out of date instructions may be transferred (offloaded, downloaded) to the FPGA , outside the x cores 86, allowing the CPU to free up resources for features or functionality more useful. Finally, FPGA elements may support the cores in some operations, improving overall performance , under certain loads of work. The FPGA elements could be on the same die as the x cores 86, or placed on a separate die on the package, connected via an interconnect like Infinity Fabric. It is certainly too early to speculate on the design of future AMD CPUs, and in any case it should not be something applicable in the short term. Furthermore, we must not forget that when it comes to patents there is no mathematical certainty that the ideas described will lead to real products.

Intel DG2 – Upcoming Gaming Graphics Card Based on Xe-HPG Architecture Can Receive 512 EU Blocks

Last year, Intel introduced not only Tiger Lake-U processors to the laptop market, but also the first dedicated graphics chips based on the Xe-LP architecture (including Iris Xe MAX Graphics, Server GPU). Last summer, during the Architecture Day conference, Intel announced graphics cards dedicated to players. These systems are to be based on the Xe-HPG architecture, supporting, among others hardware ray tracing acceleration, as do the NVIDIA GeForce RTX and AMD Radeon RX 6000 (NAVI 21). In the latest drivers, the manufacturer has introduced two new identifiers relating to the so-called DG2 – Discrete Graphics 2. Intel DG2 is an early name for graphics cards based on the aforementioned architecture. The new entry gives us some idea of the possible specification of the cards.

In the new Intel drivers there are mentions of DG2 (Xe-HPG) graphics chips, featuring 128 and 512 Execution Units.

Acer Swift 3X Test – Premiere Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics cards

Last year Intel confirmed that the debut of Xe-HPG graphics cards will take place in 2021 year. The specific release date of the first chips is still unknown, but according to reports so far, the premiere may coincide with the presentation of the 8-core Intel Tiger Lake-H processors. It is therefore possible that the DG2 chips will appear in the second quarter of the year, as will the processors. Then Intel will be able, together with OEM partners, to prepare notebooks based entirely on the Intel platform. Also according to earlier information, Intel DG2 cards can be equipped with 6 or 8 GB of GDDR6 memory (192 – bit and 256 – bit). We also know that DG2 chips will be produced in external factories – TSMC and 6 nm lithography are the most typed here.

References have appeared in the latest manufacturer’s drivers for graphics chips for DG2 (Xe-HPG cards). According to the identifiers, the first chip has 128 EU execution units, the second one 512 EU. Following this lead, the first chip will be equipped with a total of 1024 stream processors, more powerful in 4096 stream processors. Intel DG2 with 128 EU seems to be a more budget proposition, competing with cards such as NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT. However, the second card is already a higher shelf, which may aspire to compete with NVIDIA and AMD cards based on Ampere and RDNA 2 architecture.

Source: VideoCardz

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