Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

VIA to Create Pentium 4 'Clone'

Posted by michael on from the lawsuits-galore dept.

PyroMosh writes: "ZDNet is carrying a brief article about VIA's plans to start producing clones of the Pentium 4. VIA's already in legal trouble with Intel and it seems unlikley that this will go unchallenged by the chipmaking juggernaut. The Register is also covering this, and SiliconStrategies.com has an article with a bit more detail."

8 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. VIA denies this. by marcop · · Score: 5, Informative

    3Dnow.net links to the article at: http://www.theinquirer.net/19100103.htm that states that VIA denies this. Gotta love the opening paragraph.

  2. This is an illogical use of resources by vortigern00 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To reverse engineer and duplicate a processor requires a superior understanding of processor design and construction.

    Once you have reverse engineered the processor, why wouldn't you then put your resources into designing a better processor based on what you've learned, rather than wasting time making a clone?

    1. Re:This is an illogical use of resources by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 5, Informative
      To reverse engineer and duplicate a processor requires a superior understanding of processor design and construction.

      Once you have reverse engineered the processor, why wouldn't you then put your resources into designing a better processor based on what you've learned, rather than wasting time making a clone?

      Actually, it turns out that reverse-engineering is better for a couple of reasons.

      • It's less work, not more.

        When designing a chip, you have to make a host of design decisions without knowing for certain how each of them will affect performance (you try to make an intelligent gamble on picking the right approaches). If you have an existing architecture to copy, you know more or less what the tradeoff results actually were. This saves a lot of agonizing and design time.

      • You need to follow the leader's instruction set.

        AMD is big enough *now* to add its own instruction set extensions, but this is a fairly recent development. Anyone else has to make their chip fully compatible with either Intel or AMD (Intel for safety). This counts as "cloning" as far as the average tech article writer is concerned. Whether the microarchitectural approaches are copied as well is up to the clone maker.



      I know that Via's not planning to make a P4 clone (yet). However, I believe that reverse-engineering would by far be the less costly approach for anyone attempting to clone the P4.
    2. Re:This is an illogical use of resources by dschuetz · · Score: 4, Funny

      To reverse engineer and duplicate a processor requires a superior understanding of processor design and construction.

      To say nothing about the fact that it requires the resources to actually develop reliable, working chips in the first place.

      I've had no end to trouble in my Abit board with Via chipset. USB, Zip, Sound, and other problems regularly blamed on the Via chips.

      I wouldn't touch a Via CPU with a 10-foot pole (or a 6-foot Czech, for that matter).

  3. Good. by perdida · · Score: 4, Funny

    How will VIA have a competitive advantage?

    They will use substandard manufactoring processes, open chip plants in third world dictatorships, and provide less customer outreach and support.

    Good!

    Poor countries will get chipmaking infrastructure, and chip manufacturers will produce more cheaply. This part of the information economy is the part that can reach the poorest countries first; a factory job making chips is the first step towards participation in a western style net economy.

    VIA won't advertise with idiotic pitches like the Blue Men. Perhaps it will take another tack -- selling to budget computer makers.

    The chip cost is a big part of computer cost, so a cheaper chip will enable more companies to produce cheap computers, improving competition in this market sector.

    This is like spurring a housing market with a revolution in pre-fabricated housing. It makes possibilities available to an entirely new group of potential buyers.

    --
    Goat sex free since 2001
  4. Open Source processors!!! by SilentChris · · Score: 4, Funny
    I just had a great revelation (which occured when I banged my head on the router rack 5 minutes ago): we can take them all on with Open Source processors! You bring paperclips for wiring, I'll mix sand and lime for Silicon. We'll conquer the world as we did with software!

    Coming soon, Open Source hard drives. Does anyone have any spare beer coasters?

  5. WOW A 2GHZ CYRIX by KingKire64 · · Score: 5, Funny

    2GHZ lets see based on the cyrix methodaligies that would be something like 20 x 100mhz bus in real world standards that would be 13 x 33mhz bus. I wonder if this chip will retain the heat features. Imagine a chip running at 500 C. And they will be cheap just like thier ancestors. 25$ a chip so when it burns its self up in 3 months you go buy another. GOD I WANT ONE!

    --
    "All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil."-Lp.org
  6. Rumor! by Spazntwich · · Score: 4, Funny

    This has already been debunked as a rumor!

    Way to go slashdot....

    http://www.theinquirer.net/19100103.htm - There's your linkified proof. :)