Facebook is looking for an ARM SoC server hardware engineer | Hacker News Reader

Facebook is looking for an ARM SoC server hardware engineer

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38 pointsluu25 comments

Title is misleading, nothing suggests they are making an SoC. It's a job req for a systems engineer.

Some possibilities:

- FB is designing some non-compute datacenter ARM devices. For example, environment monitoring, or a control plane processor for a network switch. (Most likely IMO.)

- FB is designing/bringing up mobile ARM devices, and the references to the datacenter are a smokescreen to keep the project under wraps. Even if they aren't taking the lead on the design, it's very useful to have engineers at this level eg to audit/collaborate on the work of a partner like HTC. Personally I think this is only a matter of time, if it hasn't long since begun.

- FB is building ARM servers. Edit: Originally wrote "very unlikely", but perhaps more plausible than first thought given FB's public statements on the matter (eg [1]).

[1] http://www.zdnet.com/facebook-stretches-arm-chips-in-datacen...

Why do you think that third situation unlikely? For example, HP will be releasing their customizable ARM server, Moonshot[0], later this year. Furthermore, Facebook's PHP VM, HHVM, already runs on 64-bit ARM[1].

[0]: http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/products/... [1]: https://cards.linaro.org/browse/CARD-327

  > Why do you think that third situation unlikely?

Using a non-Intel architecture for general-purpose compute slices seems like, at minimum, a huge toolchain investment.

Things are probably better now than they were five years ago (eg there seems to be LLVM support), but even assuming toolchain parity we're talking about having two flavors of each binary to maintain; a new constraint to consider when scheduling jobs; etc. (Edit: The HHVM ARM target is interesting, and mitigates some of these).

It's not impossible, but IMO pretty unlikely compared to the other more "traditional" possibilities.

The tool chain is already pretty much there. That said Intel has been busting its hump to make sure it has a Xeon offering that is competitive watt for watt before serious server ARM chips make any inroads.

Thats mostly true, but not 100%, eg the amount of optimisation may be less and code is less tested so may have more bugs, which matter at scale.

There is quite a lot of assembly code in open source stuff, there was a survey here for the arm64 porting https://wiki.linaro.org/LEG/Engineering/OPTIM/Assembly although much should be removed... (the 64 bit port could be what Facebook is interested in and thats way less supported...)

Facebook joined the Linaro Enterprise Group (watched the announcement at ARM TechCon in Santa Clara last year), indicating that they are at least interested in developing that necessary server environment.

You're definitely right there is a large software maintenance cost, but that has to be weighed against any perf/watt savings (Anandtech's Calxeda review shows even early systems have potential http://www.anandtech.com/show/6757/calxedas-arm-server-teste...), being able to put pricing pressure on Intel, and not being tied to Intel as a single supply source.

I use ubuntu for ARM everyday for 2 years already. There are 30k linux packages available for ARM. All of them installed via "apt-get install ...." I have not encounter an opensource package where I can't build from source for ARM. If you are just looking at console, vnc sessions, there are no different between ARM and x86 server, IMHO.

Facebook's only been talking about ARM servers since 2010, but I guess that's just the misleading trade press for you.

Facebook was reported to be working on arm servers THREE YEARS AGO. http://semiaccurate.com/2010/08/23/facebook-first-jump-arm-s...

Also some reporting on Calxeda, who is ostensibly working on ARM servers: http://semiaccurate.com/2013/01/16/facebook-goes-arm-with-ca...

related question: why people on HN don't seem to read semiaccurate? these guys have some amazing insights, even if most of them are behind a paywall right now.

I didn't know about them until recently. To be honest, my first impressions of their site weren't great, just based on visuals i assumed it was some syndicated content with advertising.

How wrong was i. Consistently one of the best feeds in my feedly these days.

At least several years ago, Charlie had a really strong anti nVidia bias, and the site seemed like an average hardware enthusiast blog so it wasn't worth reading. Just checked it now and it seems pretty in depth now, though the nVidia bias seems to still be there.

I think though that it seems HN readers don't read semiaccurate because HN seems to be a software focused site, so hardware links probably don't get as many votes or people don't think to post them. Or maybe people just aren't as interested in hardware here?

Well you answered your own question -- paywalls limit the distribution of information. It's what frustrates me whenever I see comments supporting Adblock extensions but then won't pay the fee for sites like semiaccurate...as if people will work for free.

Facebook appears to be making a custom server based on an ARM SoC, not a custom SoC.

I believe Facebook suffers way too much from "Me too" disease (What apple does, FB can do. What Google does, FB can do)

Honestly, FB is doing an awful lot of development and building around a product of declining value, as opposed to innovating on that product.

The product itself is a vertical silo of information which makes one feel completely constrained.

No matter how many DCs they build (with US data access/control compliance), no matter their supporting of the OpenCompute platform, their attempts to emulate mobile innovation... the core of FB is a vertical column, groups and topics are utterly broken and they have eroded a lot of trust (what little remained) from their userbase.

Honestly, I just don't see any external value they can maintain.

I'm curious if much will be open-sourced like http://www.opencompute.org/

Wait...did Facebook buy a fabrication plant?

This is the 21st century, you don't need a Fab any more, you just buy wafer starts from TSMC or Global Foundaries.

The title originally said FB were making ARM SoC...

I understand, and nVidia makes graphics chips, but they don't have a semiconductor fab. :-)

They don't?

Nope, not a one, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabless_manufacturing for some more examples (like Qualcomm) but in general actually owning a fab is considered old school.

Google should be doing the same thing, and ease up on the incestual relationship with Intel.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/06/ibm_opens_up_power_c... "The consortium has the potential to establish Power architecture as a viable option for applications running within Google's datacenters."

Also, I suspect that work about wimpy cores was done for a reason.

PowerPC is unlikely to be for low power cores, although it could be. They are still attractive as high end cores, perhaps in networking applications.

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