CES: Project Denver puts Windows on Nvidia chips

CNET ^ | January 5, 2011 4:36 PM PST | Brooke Crothers

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

LAS VEGAS--The unthinkable has happened: the tiny ARM processors that power the world's cell phones will assail the Intel-dominated desktop and server segments--with Microsoft making it possible.

PCs with ARM chips running Windows in the future?

Nvidia's "Project Denver" will build ARM processors for desktops, servers, and supercomputers. Significant on its own, but it takes on a bigger meaning with Microsoft moving its next version of Windows to ARM.

"Microsoft's announcement [Wednesday at CES] that it is bringing Windows to ultra-low power processors like ARM-based CPUs provides the final ingredient needed to enable ARM-based PCs based on Denver," Bill Dally, Nvidia's chief scientist, wrote in blog today.

Dally continued. "Along with software stacks based on Android...and [Apple's] iOS, Windows for ultra-low power processors demonstrates the huge momentum...that will ultimately propel the ARM architecture to dominance," he wrote.

Those are fighting words for Intel. And it recognizes the challenge. "Intel and ARM is the next big battle. We know this," said a source close to Intel today.

Interestingly, Nvidia's future chips will be hybrids--much like Intel's Sandy Bridge processor--also announced today at CES. "Project Denver...features an Nvidia CPU (central processing unit) running the ARM instruction set, which will be fully integrated on the same chip as the Nvidia GPU (graphics processing unit)," Dally wrote in his blog.

And with other chip companies like Qualcomm and Texas Instruments are also pushing ARM designs, Intel indeed has something to worry about. "ARM is the fastest-growing CPU architecture in history," said Jen-Hsun Huang today, chief executive of Nvidia. He's not exaggerating.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[GeronL]

It isn’t Windows CE is it?

[Dr. Sivana]

Way back in the Windows NT days, Windows was designed to run on MIPS and Alpha chips as well as x86 chips. This development does not surprise me. I also doubt I’d want to run Windows 8 on my SmartPhone.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Major stuff happening...

Two recent articles at Anandtech together with comments add to all of this :

Updated: The License Agreement: Intel to Pay NVIDIA $1.5 Billion

And

NVIDIA's Project Denver: NV Designed, High Performance ARM Core: Updated!

And

What a Day: AMD's CEO Dirk Meyer Resigns

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I hope not.

[Kartographer]

So where do you get window treatments that small?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

What do mean by “window treatments”?

[Kartographer]

window treatment

win·dow treat·ment

noun

Definition:

covering for windows: all the accessories required to decorate a window, e.g. shades, curtains, draperies, blinds, and rods

;-)

[antiRepublicrat]

It’s not just phones. ARM is hoping to move into servers with the next generation.

[wita]

I think I got it.

[Marine_Uncle]

I have been away from chip design, system administration, programming etc., for so long I must admit I often do not appreciate the ramifications in new type/levels of performance of CPU GPU, as well as operating systems.
Though it is interesting to read about. It sure is hard to find a nitch market now a days. Gee I can remember back in the seventies, late sixties when INTEL was a prime designer and fabricator of memory products, e.i. RAMS and ROM.
How the landscape has changed in recent years. So many companies could not compete and dropped out.
Interesting how ARM has risen to the position it now maintains.

[SunkenCiv]

NVidia has the upper hand IMHO, assuming it makes intelligent choices about OS. It’s their experience with dozens of parallel processing multicore systems which will do it. ARM is some kind of gubmint project, ain’t it?