Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—Multi-Core: Sell it Simple

I have two ways of looking at processors. If I’m in geeky-engineer mode, I’m thrilled to learn about the hard-core technical details—like how the branch prediction works, and why the DMA engine is breathtaking in its sophistication and complexity, and how the chip uses a revolutionary new method for implementing… whatever.

But if I’m in product-development mode and I have to choose a processor, the last thing I want to hear is how complicated it is. No, I want to hear how straightforward it is. I want to be able to visualize how I’m going to use the chip, from early design through final testing. I want to be assured that the underlying complexity will not create obstacles for me. My geeky engineer side may appreciate the processor’s sophisticated architecture, but that’s not the side that’s going to buy the chip.

Unfortunately, many processor vendors gear their product pitches to geeky engineers. Maybe it’s because they think they need to explain the gory technical details to differentiate themselves from competitors. Or maybe it’s because it’s always easier to make a complicated technology sound more complicated than it is to make it sound simple. Whatever the reason, it’s a bad strategy.

It’s especially bad for marketing multi-core chips. These chips are inherently more complicated than single-core chips, and everyone knows this. Engineers may be attracted to the idea of using the latest, most-powerful technology—but they aren’t going to buy it if they think they’ll go insane from the complexity. The multi-core chip vendors need to convince them otherwise.

Now, let me be clear: I’m not suggesting that vendors should snow their customers. If the chip is truly confusing or difficult to use, no amount of clever marketing can fix that. But too many times, multi-core chip vendors who could give their customers a realistic, credible explanation of why their chip is straightforward to use, choose instead to focus on its complicated technical underpinnings. This pains me.

Vendors would do well to remember that whether a multi-core chip is successful in the market will depend as much on their ability to make it look (and be) un-intimidating as on its architectural bling.