Megadrive
09-07-04, 04:57 PM
DaveBaumann wrote:
ATI - XBox 2 development
FYI, ATI have just mentioned in an analyst conference that the R&D side of XBox2 is "mostly done" and they are "already moving people on to other projects". Sounds like tape out is done and its a case of verification as revisions come back from here.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=365029#365029
So the Marlborough, Mass team is nearly done with Xbox 2 graphics, now moving on to other projects. well, I suppose that would mean they are going to finish R600, and/or more distant ATI VPUs like R700 and R800, all mentioned in the Dave Orton interview from a few months back:
With respect to engineering resources its been suggested to us that the “West Coast Team” (Santa Clara - Silicon Valley) has become the main focus for all the PC parts coming from ATI and that now even R500, which we initially understood to be an “East Coast Team” (Marlborough) product, is being designed at Santa Clara. Is it the case that Santa Clara will mainly produce the PC parts now, while Marlborough will be active with “special projects” such at the next X-Box technologies?
We had this concept of the “ping-pong” development between the west and east coast design centres. On paper this looked great, but in practice it didn’t work very well. It doesn’t work well for a variety of reasons, but one of them is the PC architecture, at the graphics level, has targeted innovation and clean sheet innovation and whenever you have separate development teams you are going to, by nature, have a clean sheet development on every generation of product. For one, we can’t afford that and its not clear that it’s the right thing to do for our customers from a stability standpoint. Its also the case that’s there’s no leverage from what the other development team has done, so in some cases you are actually taking a step backwards instead of forwards.
What we are now moving towards is actually a unified design team of both east and west coast, that will develop our next generations of platforms, from R300 to R400 to R500 to R600 to R700, instead of a ping-pong ball between them both. Within that one organisation we need to think about where do we architecturally innovate and where do we not in order to hit the right development cycles to keep the leadership, but it will be one organisation.
If you dissect in, for example, to the R600 product, with is our next, next generation, that development team is all three sites - Orlando, Silicon Valley, Marlborough – but the architectural centre team is in the Valley, as you point out, but all three are part of that organisation.
Would I be correct in suggesting that mainly Marlborough and Orlando would be the R&D centres – with the design of various algorithms for new 3D parts – while the Santa Clara team would be primarily responsible for implementing them in silicon?
No, because the architecture of the R300 and R500 is all coming from the Valley, but we’ve got great architects in all three sites.
Bob Drebin in the Valley is in charge of the architecture team and so he’s in charge of the development of all the subsequent architectures but he goes out to the other teams key leaders and that forms the basis of the unified architectural team. At an implementation level, you’re right – Marlborough is mainly focused on the “special projects” and that will probably be another 18 to 24 months for them. So the R600 family will mainly be centred primarily in the Valley and Orlando with a little bit from Marlborough, and then the R800 would be more unified.
http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/daveorton/index.php?p=3
ATI - XBox 2 development
FYI, ATI have just mentioned in an analyst conference that the R&D side of XBox2 is "mostly done" and they are "already moving people on to other projects". Sounds like tape out is done and its a case of verification as revisions come back from here.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=365029#365029
So the Marlborough, Mass team is nearly done with Xbox 2 graphics, now moving on to other projects. well, I suppose that would mean they are going to finish R600, and/or more distant ATI VPUs like R700 and R800, all mentioned in the Dave Orton interview from a few months back:
With respect to engineering resources its been suggested to us that the “West Coast Team” (Santa Clara - Silicon Valley) has become the main focus for all the PC parts coming from ATI and that now even R500, which we initially understood to be an “East Coast Team” (Marlborough) product, is being designed at Santa Clara. Is it the case that Santa Clara will mainly produce the PC parts now, while Marlborough will be active with “special projects” such at the next X-Box technologies?
We had this concept of the “ping-pong” development between the west and east coast design centres. On paper this looked great, but in practice it didn’t work very well. It doesn’t work well for a variety of reasons, but one of them is the PC architecture, at the graphics level, has targeted innovation and clean sheet innovation and whenever you have separate development teams you are going to, by nature, have a clean sheet development on every generation of product. For one, we can’t afford that and its not clear that it’s the right thing to do for our customers from a stability standpoint. Its also the case that’s there’s no leverage from what the other development team has done, so in some cases you are actually taking a step backwards instead of forwards.
What we are now moving towards is actually a unified design team of both east and west coast, that will develop our next generations of platforms, from R300 to R400 to R500 to R600 to R700, instead of a ping-pong ball between them both. Within that one organisation we need to think about where do we architecturally innovate and where do we not in order to hit the right development cycles to keep the leadership, but it will be one organisation.
If you dissect in, for example, to the R600 product, with is our next, next generation, that development team is all three sites - Orlando, Silicon Valley, Marlborough – but the architectural centre team is in the Valley, as you point out, but all three are part of that organisation.
Would I be correct in suggesting that mainly Marlborough and Orlando would be the R&D centres – with the design of various algorithms for new 3D parts – while the Santa Clara team would be primarily responsible for implementing them in silicon?
No, because the architecture of the R300 and R500 is all coming from the Valley, but we’ve got great architects in all three sites.
Bob Drebin in the Valley is in charge of the architecture team and so he’s in charge of the development of all the subsequent architectures but he goes out to the other teams key leaders and that forms the basis of the unified architectural team. At an implementation level, you’re right – Marlborough is mainly focused on the “special projects” and that will probably be another 18 to 24 months for them. So the R600 family will mainly be centred primarily in the Valley and Orlando with a little bit from Marlborough, and then the R800 would be more unified.
http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/daveorton/index.php?p=3