Evolving the PC Platform Chipset Directions for 2005 and Beyond Mark Overby Platform Architect NVIDIA Corporation

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 else’s roadmap

Agenda Today’s chipset technology What is driving change in chipsets Addressing the demand for change Moving the platform forward

The Platform Chipset Today Chipset integration often affirms the arrival of a technology as an accepted baseline component of the 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 sharing a 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 today’s Platform Chipsets

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

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

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

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 the Mbps debate Wireless often replacing wired networks in some scenarios

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

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)

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

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, and manageable storage Leveraging Multi-core Processors Securing the PC, LAN, & Content Actively managing the platform

Power Management Power button puts the PC in reduced capability mode but does not shut it down Expand on Always Ready – demonstrated at 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 should adjust accordingly

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

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

Safe, Reliable, Expandable & Manageable Storage RAID 5 should be the standard for at least one 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

Making Storage Easier to Manage

NVIDIA nForce MediaShield NVIDIA nForce MediaShield Demo

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)

Securing the Platform & Network Platform & Peripheral Protection Cryptography Offload Firewall Offload TCP Offload

Platform & Peripheral Protection TPM Processor Security Extensions Cryptography Virtualization

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

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

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

MCP Core Networking Storage PCI Express Legacy Interfaces MCP Controller Logic MCP Opportunities

MCP Core Networking Storage PCI Express Legacy Interfaces MCP Controller Logic Wireless USB Firewall Offload TCP Offload MCP Opportunities

MCP Core Networking Storage PCI Express Legacy Interfaces MCP Controller Logic PCI Express Gen2 PCI Express Hotplug Multiple GPU MCP Opportunities

MCP Core Networking Storage PCI Express Legacy Interfaces MCP Controller Logic RAID 5 SATA Gen2 SAS Storage Offload MCP Opportunities

MCP Core Networking Storage PCI Express Legacy Interfaces MCP Controller Logic Management Intelligence Cryptography Offload TPM Processor Security Extensions HW Virtualization MCP Opportunities

MCP Core Networking Storage PCI Express Legacy Interfaces MCP Controller Logic MCP Opportunities Power Management

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 reduced power modes Incorporate management infrastructure to support intelligent device management, diagnostic, and troubleshooting capabilities Support advanced capabilities of high-speed interconnects

Call to Action Design for thermal (power) management flexibility Always on, always working Implement intelligence to offload user tasks Use existing Industry Standards – don’t 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

Standards and Specification Bodies PCI Serial ATA SCSI Networking Platform Security ACPI USB

Community Resources Windows Hardware & Driver Central (WHDC) Technical Communities Non-Microsoft Community Sites Microsoft Public Newsgroups Technical Chats and Webcasts Microsoft Blogs

Additional Resources Microsoft Hardware Developer Central AMD Intel

NVIDIA Resources NVIDIA nForce MCPs: (example) Related NVIDIA Technologies NVIDIA Homepage