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Microsoft Is Designing Its Own Chips for Servers, Surface PCs

Daniel Nenni

Daniel Nenni

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Staff member
Microsoft Corp. is working on in-house processor designs for use in server computers that run the company’s cloud services, adding to an industrywide effort to reduce reliance on Intel Corp.’s chip technology, Bloomberg News reports.

The world’s largest software maker is using Arm Ltd. designs to produce a processor that will be used in its data centers, according to people familiar with the plans. It’s also exploring using another chip that would power some of its Surface line of personal computers. The people asked not to be identified discussing private initiatives.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...g-its-own-chips-in-move-away-from-intel-intc?
 
I'm wondering who is Microsoft's foundry partner? My guess is TSMC.

And they already have some close collaboration:


Another burning question is what Intel will do in such tough situation? AMD is getting stronger every day and important Intel customers are leaving Intel and started using their own in-house designed chips. It will be difficult for Intel to win back that kind of customers even when Intel finally resolves its internal production issues.
 
Last edited:
hist78 said:
I'm wondering who is Microsoft's foundry partner? My guess is TSMC.
And they already have some close collaboration:
Another burning question is what Intel will do in such tough situation? AMD is getting stronger every day and important Intel customers are leaving Intel and started using their own in-house designed chips. It will be difficult for Intel to win back that kind of customers even when Intel finally resolves its internal production issues.
Click to expand...

Yes, Microsoft has a relationship with TSMC based on their Xbox gaming console business. Those chips were done by an ASIC partner. This one however, Microsoft is following the path made by Google, Facebook, Amazon, and the rest of the cloud vendors. This not only puts Intel on notice, but also AMD, Nvidia, Xilinx, and the other cloud chip suppliers, absolutely.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
Yes, Microsoft has a relationship with TSMC based on their Xbox gaming console business. Those chips were done by an ASIC partner. This one however, Microsoft is following the path made by Google, Facebook, Amazon, and the rest of the cloud vendors. This not only puts Intel on notice, but also AMD, Nvidia, Xilinx, and the other cloud chip suppliers, absolutely.
Click to expand...
What do you think Intel can do?

The time allows Intel to do some meaningful change is running very tight now.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
www.zdnet.com

Microsoft is designing its own Arm chips for datacenter servers: Report | ZDNet

We already knew Microsoft was working to bring Arm-powered servers for internal use to its cloud datacenters. But what and when will this mean anything to its customers?
www.zdnet.com www.zdnet.com
Click to expand...
"Will Microsoft continue to only use Arm servers for test purposes internally? Or will they start using Arm servers inside Azure datacenters to run new or existing Azure services sometime soon.

Another question (or three): Might Microsoft soon be following in AWS' Gravitron footsteps sometime soon by making its own custom-built Arm cores available to its cloud customers?"

With Microsoft's giagantic size and booming cloud services, Microsoft can't afford to depend on Intel's product rollout schedule to decide Microsoft's profits, growth, and competitive edges. Amazon and Google are already using their own in-house designed professors in providing their services to outside customers. Microsoft doesn't have a choice not do the same.
 
My guess, based on the information that the chip is being designed by a team in the Azure division, is that MS is aiming for Graviton binary compatibility, the better to compete with AWS. Imagine the marketing about a no-mess-no-fuss transfer from AWS to Azure. They probably also have hopes for lower power bills and all the things that drove AWS to create their own chips in the first place.

As for the idea that it could feed down into the Surface line, well that's probably just the reporter pressing their source: "So, could this end up in the Surface!!!" with a response like, "Uh... Yeah, sure, I guess."
 
If we are picking large software houses to join the chip-making fray then RedHat would be a more disruptive entry to the market considering they already have the chip-making experience in IBM
 
Daniel Nenni said:
Yes, Microsoft has a relationship with TSMC based on their Xbox gaming console business. Those chips were done by an ASIC partner. This one however, Microsoft is following the path made by Google, Facebook, Amazon, and the rest of the cloud vendors. This not only puts Intel on notice, but also AMD, Nvidia, Xilinx, and the other cloud chip suppliers, absolutely.
Click to expand...

If the deal nVidia + ARM finally materializes, nVidia is not to be put on notice, nVidia is the major winner.
 
Intel has been on notice for a few years and haven't listened. Intel is no longer on notice, they are now in the process of being evicted.
 
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