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Nvidia Is Trying To Make an x86 Chip
Slatterz writes with a story from PC Authority which says that "Word has reached us that Nvidia is definitely
working on an x86 chip and the firm is heavily recruiting x86 engineers all over Silicon Valley. The history behind this can be summarised by saying they bought an x86 team, and don't have a licence to make the parts. Given that the firm burned about every bridge imaginable with the two companies who can give them licences, Nvidia has about a zero chance of getting one."
Nvidia are going to challenge the concept of licensing an instruction set, and they know they are going to win.
That will be a great day for all the technology industry and herald a massive price crash in processor power.
Would those patents include an in hardware x86 instructionset translator to their GPU instructionset? I remember some vague comments around ~5 years ago that nVidia wanted to run an OS on their GPUs.
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Shame about that, at least try and find some additional information and link to the original article. I didn't know that the INQ has become a news agency of sorts. They certainly don't have the credentials for that. And the author of this article even less.
Then again, we can discuss the idea that nVidia is apparently (no proof whatsoever of the hirings) going for x86 without having the licenses to do so. As I understood, AMD and Intel (and VIA) let each other use patents and designs for x86, so I assume this is about letting nVidia in or not on that scheme.
Personally I'm wondering why nVidia and VIA don't fuse. One just has created a neat little x86 CPU and low power parts the other has neat GPU's. And I heard that VIA is going out of the chipset business anyways.
See, I've started up the discussion for you. If you don't like it you can order up another if you don't think it's any good.
When I saw the summery this is the 1st thing that came to my mind.
What is all they want to do is use the high density chip technology they currently have to produce a 3 Ghz or faster 80386DX CPU ?
One with all the RAM it can handle as (core speed) cache?
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Which leads to in important consideration. Yes, AMD and Intel hold patents vital to getting into the industry, but why did they cross license? That is simple: Intel had enough patents to have AMD by the balls, and AMD had enough patents to have Intel by the balls. Neither enjoyed being at the mercy of the other, so they came to a mutual agreement.
So now, fast forward to present day. Nvidia wants to get into the game. So how do they do it? Simple: they need to innovate and get patents on core technology before the other 2 do. Then they can agree to license it to one of the 2 to give them a competitive advantage. At that point Nvidia has half the necessary portfolio, and if things go well, the other will need to get their hands on the tech to stay competitive.
So why not just buy Via? They have the license to make x86, and more importantly they have low power CPUs that are ready to go, and with Netbooks and Notebooks taking a big chunk out of the market this would give them a BIG advantage in the market. If they were to buy Via they could join the Via Nano and the Ion GPU and have bad ass low power Netbooks and Notebooks ready to hit the market.
So can someone tell me what the point of doing it the hard way by starting from scratch is? Because IMHO it seems like a giant waste of resources when Via is ripe for the picking and the Nano CPU from what I have seen is a nice mix of low power with decent performance for Netbooks/Notebooks. Paired with the Ion GPU I think they would have a combo that would kick some serious ass in the Netbook and Notebook markets with little effort. Then later on if they desired they could always do a Fusion style joining of the CPU/GPU to get even better power to performance ratio. So why are they trying to reinvent the wheel?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Could be.
There was a big fight in the chipmaking world over a bunch of patents covering hardware x86/Instruction set translation, which included multicore parallel instruction processing. They were originally held by a company called Exponential Technologies, and though Intel wanted them badly, were grabbed by S3 for ten million in an auction.
In the end, S3 and Intel agreed on a time-limited cross licensing deal. That agreement ended in December 2008.
Coincidence?
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