China’s Unified CPU Architecture, Why and When

This is a syndicated post. Read the original at Ubergizmo # 2012-04-28.

Image courtesy of ExtremeTech

Part of the web was buzzing about the fact that China’s ministry of technology is trying to define a ‘unified” processor architecture, based either on an existing platform, or a new one. By “processor architecture”, we mean “instruction set architecture” or (ISA), like X86 is for Intel. The instruction set is basically “opcodes” (or operation code, which are the most basic machine-instructions), that will be understood and executed by processors. For example all AMD and Intel processors run on the X86 ISA.

Despite making the headlines only today, this is not “news” for industry insiders who (Read more...) that this has been going on for “months” (if not for years). The Chinese government is being lobbied hard by Chinese companies who complain about the $5M price tag to license an ARM Cortex A9 design (we can’t confirm the price, but it doesn’t sound so bad). Instead, they would like to have an cheaper intellectual property that they could use/afford. (more…)

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