Evolving the PC Platform Chipset Directions for 2005 and Beyond

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Evolving the PC PlatformChipset Directions for
2005 and Beyond

• Mark Overby
• Platform ArchitectNVIDIA Corporation

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Caveats

• Client PC Focused
• Some server platform applicability though
• These are ideas and directions to investigate
• Not an NVIDIA roadmap
• Not a Microsoft roadmap
• Not anyone elses roadmap

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Agenda

• Todays chipset technology
• What is driving change in chipsets
• Addressing the demand for change
• Moving the platform forward

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The Platform Chipset Today

• Chipset integration often affirms the arrival of
  a technology as an accepted baseline component
  ofthe PC platform
• Chipsets are no longer just a discrete I/O
  interconnect, they have become media and
  communications processors (MCP)
• Continued advances in high-speed bus interconnect
  along with Moore's Law have helped to drive
  consolidation of the PC subsystem into a few
  major silicon components - CPU, GPU, and MCP, all
  sharinga large common heap of memory
• The emergence of "media processing" as a primary
  function of the PC will lead to a new era of
  Media Communications Processors that will replace
  todays Platform Chipsets

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What Is Driving Change In Chipsets?

• Consumer expectations
• Processor advances
• Networking broadband connectivity
• Increasing storage size, capability, and demand
• High speed interconnects
• Security/content protection

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Consumer Expectations

• The PC needs to be appliance like (small, quiet)
• Never off Exception (maybe) is a power outage
• Never idle
• Connects to all devices ubiquitously
• Autonomous Self Maintenance interactive
  troubleshooting

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Processor Advances

• Power / performance improvements
• Dual Core
• Hyper-threading
• Memory technology
• Power State Management
• Virtual processing
• Security improvements

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Networking Broadband

• Home LAN with Broadband connection
• Mobile devices with internet and network
  connectivity
• PANs - Transient multiple external device
  connections
• More and more demand for Broadband resources
• High bandwidth multimedia (e.g. HD video) creates
  a huge demand for more bandwidth
• The megahertz debate is replaced by theMbps
  debate
• Wireless often replacing wired networksin some
  scenarios

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Storage

• All that content needs somewhere to go
• Capacities increasing quickly(e.g. 400 500 GB
  disks available today)
• PC capable of Massive Storage
• Needs to be Secure
• Needs to be Safe/Robust
• Needs to be Manageable

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High Speed Interconnects

• PCI Express
• Ushers in a new era of high performance add in
  boards with advanced processing capabilities
• Serial ATA
• Internal and External hot pluggable storage
• Wireless USB
• New era of wireless plug and play device
  interacting with the PC
• USB 2.0
• For anything that is not wireless (e.g. portable
  storage)

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Security Content Protection Needs

• Platform and peripheral Security
• Vital data stored on the PC and PCs across the
  network needs to be protected
• Premium content owners demand protection

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Addressing the Demand for Change

• A new Thermal (Power) Management paradigm
• The PC is never off
• Performance scales to demand
• Enables a 24/7 processing model
• Task specific processing offload
• Safe, reliable, expandable, andmanageable
  storage
• Leveraging Multi-core Processors
• Securing the PC, LAN, Content
• Actively managing the platform

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Power Management

• Power button puts the PC in reduced capability
  mode but does not shut it down
• Expand on Always Ready demonstratedat WinHEC
  2004
• To appear off, it must run in a state that
  reduces noise to below ambient level
• An efficient solution requires managing the
  entire PC HW suite, not just slowing down the CPU
  and putting devices in D3 state
• Applications must be more aware of power state
• OS management of PC resources is required
• Different activities have different resource
  requirements
• System performance thermal management
  shouldadjust accordingly

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Adopting a 24/7 Processing Model

• Distributing software work to hardware offload
  devices in system, where it makes sense
• Safe, reliable, expandable, and manageable
  Storage
• No down time
• No back up required
• Simple can be done by user
• Use Multi-core CPUs for efficiency
• Optimizing SW for I/O

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Take Advantage of Offload Technologies

• GPU massive processing capability
• PCI Express opens access to powerful processing
  capabilities
• Media Encode/Decode/Transcode
• Post-processing of photo and video content
• Networking Offload
• Firewall Offload
• Storage Offload
• Cryptography Offload
• Protect massive amounts of data media content
  moving to/from storage across internal PC bus

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Safe, Reliable, Expandable Manageable Storage

• RAID 5 should be the standard for at leastone PC
  in the home network
• Redundancy/fault tolerance
• Performance
• Expandable
• Easy expansion of storage
• External SATA, Hot Plug capabilities of SATA
• Network
• Backup needs to take place automatically
• Need to completely isolate the user from the
  complexity of storage

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Making Storage Easier to Manage
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NVIDIA nForce MediaShieldDemo
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Leveraging Multi-Core Processors

• Multi-core processors will be ubiquitous
• Multi-core processor is more power efficient
  compared to 2 single core processors
• Provides opportunity to do more processing at
  a lower power/thermal cost (performance / watt)

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Securing the Platform Network

• Platform Peripheral Protection
• Cryptography Offload
• Firewall Offload
• TCP Offload

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Platform Peripheral Protection

• TPM
• Processor Security Extensions
• Cryptography
• Virtualization

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Cryptography Offload

• Using the distributed resources of the PC while
  in a low power state will necessitate being able
  to offload the cryptography task for I/O to a
  dedicated engine in the chipset
• Example using the GPU to transcode premium
  content on demand for downloading to a portable
  media center
• Not just networking storage, audio, and others

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Hardware Firewall Offload

• Hardware firewall provides additional layer of
  protection to each PC on the Home LANand/or
  connected to the PC
• As bandwidth increases demand on the firewall
  will strip CPU capacity to keep up

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Managing the Platform

• Numerous vital tasks running in the background
• Virus, anti-spyware scanning
• Search engine indexing
• SW updates
• System maintenance tasks running inthe
  background
• Disk optimization
• System optimization
• Media secure content consolidation and
  protection
• Diagnostic and troubleshooting support
• Hardware automation for common tasks orcomplex
  tasks
• Failure prediction and analysis

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MCP Opportunities
MCP Core
Networking
PCI Express
MCP Controller Logic
Storage
Legacy Interfaces
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MCP Opportunities
Wireless USB Firewall Offload TCP Offload
MCP Core
Networking
PCI Express
MCP Controller Logic
Storage
Legacy Interfaces
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MCP Opportunities
MCP Core
PCI Express Gen2 PCI Express Hotplug Multiple GPU
Networking
PCI Express
MCP Controller Logic
Storage
Legacy Interfaces
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MCP Opportunities
MCP Core
Networking
PCI Express
MCP Controller Logic
Storage
Legacy Interfaces
RAID 5 SATA Gen2 SAS Storage Offload
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MCP Opportunities
MCP Core
Networking
PCI Express
MCP Controller Logic
Storage
Legacy Interfaces
Management Intelligence Cryptography
Offload TPM Processor Security Extensions HW
Virtualization
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MCP Opportunities
MCP Core
Networking
PCI Express
Power Management
MCP Controller Logic
Storage
Legacy Interfaces
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Operating System Opportunities

• Support processing and offload capabilities in
  the MCP and attached peripheral devices
• Schedule tasks based on power state and
  availability of resources
• Provide application awareness for reducedpower
  modes
• Incorporate management infrastructure to support
  intelligent device management, diagnostic, and
  troubleshooting capabilities
• Support advanced capabilities of high-speed
  interconnects

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Call to Action

• Design for thermal (power) management
  flexibility
• Always on, always working
• Implement intelligence to offload user tasks
• Use existing Industry Standards dont reinvent
  the wheel, just improve it
• Write applications to utilize offload capability
  provided by Windows
• Work with Microsoft and industry partners to
  standardize support for advanced scenarios

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Standards and Specification Bodies

• PCI
• http//pcisig.com
• Serial ATA
• http//www.t13.org
• http//www.sata-io.org
• SCSI
• http//www.t10.org
• Networking
• http//standards.ieee.org/getieee802
• Platform Security
• http//trustedcomputinggroup.org
• ACPI
• http//www.acpi.info
• USB
• http//www.usb.org

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Community Resources

• Windows Hardware Driver Central (WHDC)
• www.microsoft.com/whdc/default.mspx
• Technical Communities
• www.microsoft.com/communities/products/default.msp
  x
• Non-Microsoft Community Sites
• www.microsoft.com/communities/related/default.mspx
  
• Microsoft Public Newsgroups
• www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups
• Technical Chats and Webcasts
• www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/default.mspx
• www.microsoft.com/webcasts
• Microsoft Blogs
• www.microsoft.com/communities/blogs

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Additional Resources

• Microsoft Hardware Developer Central
• http//www.microsoft.com/whdc
• AMD
• http//www.amd.com
• Intel
• http//www.intel.com

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NVIDIA Resources

• NVIDIA nForce MCPs
• http//www.nvidia.com/page/mobo.html (example)
• Related NVIDIA Technologies
• http//www.nvidia.com/page/technologies.html
• NVIDIA Homepage
• http//www.nvidia.com

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