Fresh Hacker News | Arm releases first in-house chip, with Meta as debut customer

▲Arm releases first in-house chip, with Meta as debut customer(cnbc.com)

93 points by goplayoutside 3 days ago | 7 comments

▲forinti 10 hours ago

Arm came from Acorn and Acorn did make the first ARM CPUs for their computers, so it's not really the first time they do this.

▲fweimer 9 hours ago

They made the Morello research CPUs, but did not sell them.

The Acorn/Arm history is somewhat complicated due to the Arm IPO, I think.

▲nutjob2 9 hours ago

One can split hairs about the corporate responsibility, but I personally bought a VLSI ARM chip in the 90s. VLSI were one of the original 3 partners (along with Apple and Acorn) who owned the newly formed ARM corp and were the first to produce them (for Apple).

▲daneel_w 6 hours ago

The Acorn Archimedes came with Acorn branded CPUs (the "ARM250" IIRC) already in the late 80s. I can't recall what company made the chips for ARM at that time, but in the later Archimedes models it was VLSI.

▲rwmj 5 hours ago

VLSI from the very start according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family#ARM1

▲daneel_w 27 minutes ago

A quick Google image search shows me ARM250TG chips, Acorn-ARM branded, from "MITEL" and "GPS".

▲3eb7988a1663 3 hours ago

After Amazon, Google, and Apple all have had successes with in house ARM, I had naively assumed Meta would do the same. Given the speeds with which they have been developed, it must not be "that hard" to spin up a chip. You could have easily framed it as a long-term plan - custom chips for the Occlus.

▲ChrisArchitect 3 days ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47506251

▲checker659 11 hours ago

That is not a dupe

▲Eufrat 10 hours ago

I think it is. The launch announcement explicitly says the same thing, “Meta is our lead partner and customer”.

▲checker659 9 hours ago

On HN, dupe means duplicate discussion for the same link

▲password4321 8 hours ago

> duplicate discussion for the same link

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but this is incorrect per moderator dang at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43765252:

> On HN, dupeness is more a question of whether the underlying story is substantively the same or not

I believe dang's most recent in-depth explanation can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43738815 and you can search for more at https://hn.algolia.com?query=author%3Adang+dupe&sort=byDate&...

Submissions of the same exact URL are automatically merged into the previous discussion server side, and are discouraged for about a year.

▲checker659 7 hours ago

But one is a press release from ARM and the other is a report from CNBC. How are the two the same?

By your logic, there shouldn't be a gazillion posts about Apple Events the day it happens.

▲geerlingguy 6 hours ago

Apple usually announces like 3-5 new products, each in a distinct market / audience fit. Arm announced one product for one customer.

But sometimes two long discussions ensue on separate days for one event/product/announcement, if it's big enough. Often the discussions are merged later on. No big deal.

▲mbreese 5 hours ago

And even for big news events (which, this might qualify as), people can miss the first discussion. Even if the discussions end up merged later on, the different discussions can still be fruitful.

Which is why, even if it is a duplicate conversation, the mods generally allow things to play out organically. There's either going to be more discussion above, or people have already said their peace and we move on.

▲password4321 6 hours ago

It's not my logic, it's the logic of the moderator(s) of HN. Here's more, cut+paste from the link previously provided (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43738815):

> I agree—they're not all the same story. On the other hand: stories in an ongoing sequence usually lead to repetitive discussion, which is bad for HN

▲drob518 5 hours ago

This is going to be a strategic challenge for ARM unless they are going to focus on chips that nobody else wants to make. And given the AI focus, that doesn’t seem to be the case. I would think that the RISC-V folks would be salivating at the prospect of flipping some existing ARM licensees to RISC-V.

▲tsukikage 1 hour ago

Meta bought a RISC-V startup six months ago: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=meta+rivos

Guess at the end of the day, no-one ever got fired for building ARM.

▲wmf 3 hours ago

focus on chips that nobody else wants to make

That's what happened here. Meta wants a Neoverse V3 CPU but no one will make it for them. So Arm has to make it.

▲leptons 2 hours ago

ARM does not have their own fab, someone else is doing the actual making. ARM helped Meta design the thing.

▲kaladin-jasnah 5 hours ago

How does this fit with Meta's decision to acquire Rivos?

▲brcmthrowaway 4 hours ago

acquihire?

▲mrbluecoat 6 hours ago

"in-house" is misleading

> Like nearly all fabless AI chipmakers, Arm currently manufactures its CPU at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company ’s fabrication plants.

▲alain94040 4 hours ago

It's not misleading for people in the industry. ARM so far was selling IP (Verilog source code) that other chip makers would include in a full chip design.

Now ARM for the first time (this century) is making its own chip [design], which like most of its customers, is manufactured by a fab like TSMC.

The title is clear.

▲sgerenser 2 hours ago

Similarly Apple doesn't manufacture any of its own computers or iPhones (it's all contract manufacturers like FoxConn) but it would clearly be wrong to say "Apple doesn't make computers! Foxconn does!"