Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/10786/arm-techcon-2016-keynote-live-blog
ARM TechCon 2016 Keynote Live Blog
by Ryan Smith on October 25, 2016 12:25 PM EST12:27PM EDT - I'm here at the Santa Clara Convention Center for ARM's annual TechCon conference
12:27PM EDT - This year's focus is expected to be on IoT devices
12:28PM EDT - Of particular interest, Masayoshi Son of ARM's new owner Softbank will be speaking
12:29PM EDT - Softbank's acquisiton of ARM still has an air of mystery to it. So hopefully we get a bit more insight here
12:30PM EDT - And here we go
12:31PM EDT - First up is Simon Segars, CEO of ARM
12:33PM EDT - ARM partners shipped 15B chips last year. About $50B in sales
12:34PM EDT - Big change for ARM this year is of course their buyout
12:34PM EDT - A deal that was closed in 7 weeks
12:35PM EDT - What's it going to do for ARM? What's it going to do for ARM's partners?
12:37PM EDT - "But why is it that Softbank bought ARM?"
12:39PM EDT - Masayoshi Son
12:40PM EDT - He wastes no time in his opening statement, reiterating that ARM's direction isn't changing
12:43PM EDT - Son is opening up with a somewhat unconventional analogy between evolution, the first species with eyes, and sensors
12:45PM EDT - Biological sensing made a massive difference
12:46PM EDT - Just like the Cambrian explosion, there will be an IoT explosion
12:47PM EDT - So why buy ARM? Because this is the explosion of IoT, and Softbank wants to be there for it
12:49PM EDT - Billions and billions of IoT devices over the next 20 years
12:49PM EDT - Adding up to a trillion devices
12:50PM EDT - "Deep learning will make us super smart"
12:51PM EDT - But to have this IoT future, IoT devices need to be secure
12:51PM EDT - At this point it's more important than performance
12:52PM EDT - Hundreds of chips in a modern car, with very little security. There is no encryption
12:55PM EDT - AI is already exceeding humans in some areas
12:56PM EDT - The Singularity
12:56PM EDT - (ed: Kurzweil's dream)
12:57PM EDT - "Whether we like it or not, technology will evolve"
12:59PM EDT - We want to make life better for everyone. And this revolutioln cannot happen by just one company (e.g. ARM needs its partners)
12:59PM EDT - So no concrete details on tech, but a vision for why Softbank needs ARM
01:00PM EDT - Now Q&A time
01:01PM EDT - ARM partners already sells billions of microcontrollers, but what happens when they're all connected?
01:04PM EDT - Son: "I do not intend to micromanage"
01:05PM EDT - Son is reiterating that he's in this for the long haul. Decades, not quarters
01:10PM EDT - And that's a wrap on the Q&A
01:11PM EDT - Now for a bit more of a tech focus
01:11PM EDT - ARM's Future Technology Research Group will be presenting on the future of scaling
01:13PM EDT - Some people say 28nm was the best node ever. ARM agrees
01:13PM EDT - However right now we need multiple patterning, and that gets expensive
01:14PM EDT - Where do we go from here?
01:14PM EDT - What can we do besides finer pitches?
01:16PM EDT - Steppers are getting faster
01:17PM EDT - If we don't get a good EUV tech for 5nm, there will be trouble
01:19PM EDT - Going below 5nm will be about materials engineering. A replacement for silicon
01:21PM EDT - Beyond transistors and wires. Find something better than SRAM
01:24PM EDT - A lot of these boosters are one-time tricks
01:24PM EDT - So are they worth it if it only helps once?
01:26PM EDT - ARM joined the IMEC consortium this year
01:28PM EDT - More discussion of what groups ARM is working with as of late on continuing Moore's Law
01:29PM EDT - In summary, Moore's Law will struggle with pitches. But scaling boosters can help keep things going
01:29PM EDT - (Chip design is about to get a lot less traditional)
01:32PM EDT - But on the plus side, scaling up until now is what has made IoT possible
01:32PM EDT - Final speaker for today is Mike Muller, ARM's CTO
01:35PM EDT - Mike is focusing on wearables, and what they can be used for
01:36PM EDT - An interesting discussion given the recent news that smartwatch sales have taken a large hit this year
01:37PM EDT - Mike is reflecting on how things have changed for him in the last 16 years
01:39PM EDT - The medical field is a key change
01:39PM EDT - Now, how can modern IoT-type tech be used to improve this furter?
01:42PM EDT - Can you use recent research to detect cancer early and cheaply?
01:43PM EDT - More present day: using tiny sensors to measure inter-cranial pressure
01:47PM EDT - "There are 1001 vertical segments for IoT"
01:47PM EDT - "We are currently in the feature phone era"
01:48PM EDT - "The product works well, but it's a vertically integrated solution"
01:48PM EDT - What's coming next: the smartphone revolution for ioT
01:49PM EDT - Being announced today on the product side:
01:50PM EDT - Cortex-M23 and M33
01:50PM EDT - CrytoCell-312
01:50PM EDT - CoreLink SIE-200
01:51PM EDT - And Cordio, the link layer RTL for wireless communications
01:52PM EDT - nved Cloud: ARM's software-as-a-service cloud infrastructure for IoT devices
01:52PM EDT - All with a focus on security and encryption
01:54PM EDT - Where does securitty meet privacy in IoT?
01:57PM EDT - Moving on, machine learning will change how data is correlated. Discovering correlations humans couldn't find before
01:58PM EDT - "innovation is not always about technology"
01:59PM EDT - We need to provide seucirty. We need to work on privacy so that users trust us with the data
01:59PM EDT - And that's a wrap. Off to some more Q&As
02:00PM EDT - :)