Intel, AMD team with tech titans for x86 ISA overhaul The shape of the x86 instruction set architecture (ISA) is evolving. On Tuesday, Intel and AMD announced the formation of an ecosystem advisory group intended to drive greater consistency between the brands' x86 implementations. Intel and AMD have been co-developing the x86-64 instruction for decades. But while end user …
Going 64-bit only (dropping 16-bit and 32-bit legacy silicon) as discussed in the "x86S spec" link, and as mulled last year, makes good sense to me, especially now that those chips and systems aren't booting through some 16-bit PC BIOS anymore but through UEFI instead, straight into 64-bit operation.
ARM had the same idea 4 years ago with all new Cortex-A in its Tocal Compute Solutions (TCS) being 64-bit only from last year (approx.), like the Cortex-X925, Cortex-A725, and Cortex-A520 (AFAIK).
8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit chips might still find uses in the tiniest, or least expensive, of computational devices though, just not as main CPUs in phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, workstations, servers, etc ..., IMHO.
Hopefully they also start considering 128-bit addressing in their reshaped ISAs, as needed for the Zettascale (and beyond)!
Zero page and similar concepts dont really work in the modern world. Back in those days memory access was fast enough, and the cpu was the slow part so ther ewas little advanage in having lots of registers.
We can see basically all cpus from that time had the same philospophy.
Not entirely - you still need a level of hardware support. But I predict a huge outcry from the gaming community as their favourite older games wouldn't be too likely to run on such stripped processors.
Well maybe not a huge outcry, but definitely some whimpering and whining.
I am certain that even demanding 32-bit games of yesteryear could be emulated on the WOW32 built into Windows emulated on the 64-bit processor. For everything else, there is 86Box, DOSBox-X and its ilk.
I take great delight in running Wing Commander 3 (which only ran on the fastest Pentiums of its 90s era, using 16-bit x86 code and MS DOS) on a Snapdragon ARM PC using DOSBox.
That’s cross CPU arch and no native 16-bit x86 on my WinARM PC. Runs faster than ever.
"But I predict a huge outcry from the gaming community as their favourite older games wouldn't be too likely to run on such stripped processors."
This will not affect 32bit programs in anyway, 32bit programs already run on the 64bit part of the CPU.
Currently the CPU boots to the 16bit mode, does initialisation, then boots to the 32bit mode, shuts down the 16bit mode, then boots to the 64bit mode, then shuts down the 32bit mode.
If you are running a 64bit OS then the 16bit and 32bit parts of the CPU are already shut down.
16bit mode supports 16bit.
32bit mode supports 16bit and 32bit.
64bit mode supports 32bit and 64bit.
One tiny snag with constantly expanding data and address buses is that they consume interface pins. Lots of them. These need routing and drivers on the silicon and routing off the silicon on whatever the part's attached to. If the memory can be locally attached -- integrated -- like a microcontroller then this will ease the problem somewhat but in general its a design, manufacturing and test headache.
For many products this is justified, if for no other reason than apparent competitiveness ("they have it"). But for a lot of applications this is wasteful, consuming lots of real estate, power and other resources.
(It would be a lot more useful to figure out how to write more efficient code than constantly expanding the resources needed to run it.)
Btw, this is 99.9999% beneficial to Intel only. AMD, as usual, is the sucker/loser that Intel carries along because of anti-trust.
I might think differently if major computer manufacturers had even some parity with regards to Intel vs. AMD offerings. But things are still very skewed towards Intel.
Again, it's just a sham show from Intel. Typical.
I sort of hope that ARM eats Intel's lunch. Sorry AMD, but you're still a sucker/loser, but mainly because you're willing.
You sir, need to step back and put down the keyboard for a while.
AMD is the reason we have x86-64 (AMD64), without it Intel would still be shilling that IA64 platform that was so horrible.
The ZEN processors have been fantastic and have had Intel sitting up taking notice for a while now.
Funny the article leads with AMDs 98% consistent support, double or single pumped Zen4 onwards runs the same machine code.
I would lead with the hell of exactly which pieces of AVX an Intel core supports at any given time -it a mystery, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY MIX SUPPORT IN THE SAME CHIP.
Heck the Wikipedia article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Vector_Extensions is full of fun weirdness, e.g.
'Intel does not officially support AVX-512 family of instructions on the Alder Lake microprocessors. In early 2022, Intel began disabling in silicon (fusing off) AVX-512 in Alder Lake microprocessors to prevent customers from enabling AVX-512.[29] In older Alder Lake family CPUs with some legacy combinations of BIOS and microcode revisions, it was possible to execute AVX-512 family instructions when disabling all the efficiency cores which do not contain the silicon for AVX-512.'
In the past AMD and Intel were not allowed to merge due to monopoly concerns. But you can argue that x86 is no longer a monopoly, as ARM powers an increasing fraction of computers (and RISC-V is slowly rising too). So I don't see it as impossible that the two merge. Still selling under their original brands, but sharing more technology and making common business decisions to differentiate the brands more by targeting different segments.
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