Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Nvidia Rumored To Be Readying X86 Chip Release

Posted by timothy on from the probably-not-for-wristwatch-computers dept.

jdb2 writes with the (honestly labeled) rumor from the Inquirer "that Nvidia is preparing to release an x86 microprocessor with its guns targeted directly at its two major rivals — Intel and AMD/ATI," and excerpts from the just-linked Inquirer article: "THE HOT RUMOR going around IDF ... [is] that the company will do an x86 part. The background whispers say that the part will be announced next week at Nvision ... Nvidia's men in white coats certainly have the brainpower to do it, but they also most certainly don't have a license to sell such a part. NV is basically locked out unless Intel and AMD both decide to be magnanimous, and we would not recommend holding your breath waiting for this to happen ... That leaves the lawsuit option open ... Any attempt to enter the market without a license would bring down Intel legal on them like flying monkeys blackening the sky. It would get ugly. Really ugly. Expensive too.""

10 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. Okay, I'll bite... by KingSkippus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Any attempt to enter the market without a license would bring down Intel legal on them like flying monkeys blackening the sky.

    How is it that AMD is able to release x86 chips, but nVidia can't without a license from Intel? Why would nVidia need AMD to be gracious?

    1. Re:Okay, I'll bite... by khb · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In the olden days, chip consumers insisted on a second source. AMD was annointed as Intel's second source so that Intel could sell to such folks (like the US government of yesteryear).

    2. Re:Okay, I'll bite... by jmorris42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > I don't see why nVidia would have it any different or wouldn't be able to do the same.

      There are already a crapload of people who are now or have in the past sold x86 compatible chips. You generally can't claim an exclusive on the public interfaces like the instruction set. Patents on various sub systems are a problem for anyone doing anything these days, but new products somehow manage to get to market.

      Cyrix->Via didn't have a cross license deal. Don't think Transmeta did either. I even remember 8086 compatible chips with NEC's stamp on the package. And there are a couple more I remember existed but can't pull the name from memory. The skills to make an x86 compatible processor from scratch is getting pretty widespread, making and selling one competitive with Intel and AMD is a different kettle of fish as so many others have found to this dismay.

      --
      Democrat delenda est
    3. Re:Okay, I'll bite... by NimbleSquirrel · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Actually if you look back in news a few months you'll find that nVidia and Via entered into a technology sharing partnership. If nVidia require a license to produce an x86 chip (and that is something I highly doubt), then Via's patent umberella should protect them from Intel's flying monkeys. ;)

      As far as lawsuits go, I can't see Intel opening up on nVidia either way. They already have enough problems in the US and EU with anti-trust threats: a lawsuit against a new player would be just be more evidence against them. Secondly, nVidia are a major producer of chipsets for Intel, and a lawsuit could see them dump support for Intel (and either solely support AMD or leave the chipset business altogether).

      nVidia haven't been faring too well lately, and entering into this venture would have been well researched. I imagine that patents and licensing would have been one of the first issues to get sorted.

      Personally, I don't think nVidia would be capable of entering the market with x86 chips for high-end desktops. However, I do suspect that we'll see a system-on-a-chip based on Via's Nano, with an on-chip GPU (with PhysX and SLI capability), northbridge and southbridge. It would be rather like nVidia's Tegra is to ARM11. I'm guessing that such a processor wouldn't be destined for the desktop, but rather the portable market.

  2. What about VIA? by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does VIA has a license to make x86 processors?

  3. Emulation/Translation - do it in software? by argent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They could pull a Transmeta and build a RISC/VLIW core or six and package it with an x86 interpreter or JIT translator, basically do the front end in software instead of hardware. Crusoe was using the same core to do the translation and execution, but with a multi-core CPU that pipelines the translator and interpreter on separate cores they could end up with quite a nice design.

  4. Nvidia would not need a license everywhere! by Anita+Coney · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sure, if Nvidia tried selling x86 chips in the US or Europe, the company would get its ass sued off. But what about China? What about India? What about the third world? Merely because Intel has a rock solid patent portfolio in the US does not mean diddly squat in Bangladesh.

    --
    If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
  5. How quickly we forget... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Cyrix, Texas Instruments, IBM, NexGen, amongst others.

    Other companies made clone x86 CPUs as well (The list: IBM, NEC, AMD, TI, STM, Fujitsu, OKI, Siemens, Cyrix, Intersil, C&T, NexGen, and UMC). Intel has never been really successful at prosecuting anyone for creating their own x86 compatible CPU. They won't sue, unless the company is small enough to just give up (Hint: nVidia isn't).

  6. Something I forgot to mention in the summary by jdb2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The idea of Nvidia producing an x86 CPU might seem dubious but perhaps not in the light of the fact that Nvidia bought Stexar in 2006. Stexar was a little known and quite secretive startup composed of a large portion of ex-Intel engineers and higher-ups from Intel's Xeon team. Before being swallowed by Nvidia they were intimating that work was being done on some sort of x86 "DSP".

    jdb2

  7. Implement "Not X86" X86 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seems easy to bypass the X86 issue. Create a full CPU using the X86 instruction set. Remove anything and everything related to 286 protected mode (keep "real" and 386 "protected" modes). Optionally, remove ring 1 & 2 from 386 protected mode, but keep the register format the same (windows and unix only use ring 0 and ring 3). Then, add a new CPU instruction or two that would really boost the performance of Nvidia's graphics drivers, which Nvidia can autodetect and use in their shipping drivers (just like most graphics drivers used to detect SSE and the like). Naturally, no one else would use these instructions, but Nvidia could be a good citizen and document them.

    The resulting chip wouldn't be X86, because all X86 code does not run. The result would be a new chip that isn't backwards compatible. Let Intel bark and moan all day long in their marketing that the chip isn't X86. All Nvidia has to do is make sure it runs Windows just fine without a new SKU from Microsoft (is it Intel's fault that MS doesn't use 286 protected mode? Is it Intel's fault that MS doesn't use ring 1 or ring 2?).

    There would still be a lawsuit, and it would be *wise* to ensure that your legal team is well funded. But it seems most legal arguments are letter of the law these days, and the subset and extended X86 is definitely not X86 (you can produce code that works on X86, but would fail on this, you can produce code that works on this but fails on X86).

    This would be a ballsy move for Nvidia, but seems right up their alley.