Rumors of spring say Google is trialling Tilera chips

Rumor: The grebes of Mountain View speak loudly

Apr 13, 2011 by

Tilera LogoThe birds of spring are particularly active this year, and the return of the reticulated grebes to Minnesota after their yearly sojourn to Mountain View is full of news. This year, they bring news of airfields, 100 zeros, and 100 core chips.

Feeding mackerel McNuggets to the grebes is always a good way to dig up news in the semiconductor field, and this year, we had to go through almost four supersize buckets before we got a tip. One particularly bloated bird walked back to the water, turned to a friend, and said, “I do like it better here, Mountain View just isn’t the same since Google stared looking to efficient chips. I can’t keep the webbing between my toes warm any more, next year I’ll probably go to my sister’s condo in Sunnyvale.”

This got me curious, so I asked him what he meant. His response was that Google is trialling boxes from Tilera, If you recall, last time Tilera gave an update, they were talking all about the cloud, and plain servers made by Quanta, not pretty showpieces. Quanta makes inexpensive servers, and they make lots and lots of them. Quanta also doesn’t make a box unless it has orders for lots and lots of them. It is all about huge volumes for ODMs like this.

When pressed for specifics, all that reticulated grebe would say was that Google is trailing the boxes, so this means that there hasn’t been a huge order placed yet, a trial is just that. Given the Quanta relationship, it is pretty certain that someone is either buying, or about to buy a lot of them though. Google fits that description well, and Facebook is already there, and there are many others facing similar problems where lots of small cores is the answer. Then again, you know what they say about how reticulated grebes jump to conclusions.S|A

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Charlie Demerjian

Roving engine of chaos and snide remarks at SemiAccurate
Charlie Demerjian is the founder of Stone Arch Networking Services and SemiAccurate.com. SemiAccurate.com is a technology news site; addressing hardware design, software selection, customization, securing and maintenance, with over one million views per month. He is a technologist and analyst specializing in semiconductors, system and network architecture. As head writer of SemiAccurate.com, he regularly advises writers, analysts, and industry executives on technical matters and long lead industry trends. Charlie is also available through Guidepoint and Mosaic. FullyAccurate