Despite its aging design, the x86 is still in charge

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How is that different...

... from the plan described in the article?

Quoting:

Some think a hybrid future is possible: smaller, more power-efficient cores could be created on an x86 using other ISAs that would be dedicated for specific tasks, like video processing, Arvind said.

IBM is doing something like this with its Cell processor design, found at the heart of Sony's PlayStation 3. Cell uses one PowerPC core in a sort of supervisory role over eight separate processing units.

Further on down the road, chip companies could keep a basic x86 core to maintain backward compatibility and handle the next generation of complicated processing tasks with dedicated hardware--that may or may not run x86.

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 04/03/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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