[Beowulf] El Reg: AMD reveals potent parallel processing breakthrough

[Mark Hahn]

> Of course being in a console doesn't mean a lot for success, just
> look at Cell..

yes, interesting comparison.  cell introduced moderately interesting 
hardware (vaguely GPU-like) with a programming model that was fairly
challenging.  (and not just because it was a specialized power variant.)

to me HSA is doing two things: simpler, integrated memory model
and intermediate language (/platform) that seems to expand on the
Cuda IL concept.  I think the memory part is an obvious win, but whether 
they can pull off the HSA ecosystem remains to be seen.

(to be fair, none of the HSA stuff has really shipped, since current 
APUs are just CPU+GPU co-resident...)

regards, mark hahn