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I hope this not an "embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy. If the ARM and Nvidia deal had gone through, it would have been a major headache for Intel. Now th

by _448 5y ago

I hope this not an "embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy. If the ARM and Nvidia deal had gone through, it would have been a major headache for Intel. Now that is off, Intel has less things to worry about on the architecture front apart from RISC-V.

hajile 5y ago
The ISA is moving toward being a commodity and nothing is going to stop that. Intel has more money to put into chip design. They already have all the IP and patents for the non-RISCV parts of the chip and chipset. They could literally design a drop-in replacement in their current motherboards and go straight to market years before all this stuff gets tested and shipped by the competition. Just as important, they have the business connections and reputation of delivering. Those may be less tangible, but the best chip in the world doesn't mean anything if you can't move it to customers. They seem very strongly positioned even if they never have any input into the ISA itself.
- jabl 5y ago
  They have an even stronger position in x86, where they are the dominant player in a duopoly, with new entrants denied access. So yes, they might be interested in helping RISC-V in order to hurt Arm on the low end, but I'm sure they're not looking forward to RV eating a chunk of the x86 market.
  - hajile 5y ago
    They are getting stomped by ARM on the high-end too. X2 is quite a bit faster per clock than every x86 (except maybe golden cove). It's only a matter of time before these start flowing into the high-end market and disrupt. Jim Keller is currently overseeing a 6-issue RISC-V core (same width as Intel's latest/greatest golden cove chip) that will allegedly be open-sourced too. This is a very dangerous situation for them. It seems better to milk x86 for all it's worth while leveraging RISC-V for all it's worth. If they can offer custom x86 compatibility with their RISC-V designs, that's just one more way to ensure they cut out the rest of the market and keep their lead.

by _448 5y ago

hajile 5y ago

The ISA is moving toward being a commodity and nothing is going to stop that. Intel has more money to put into chip design. They already have all the IP and patents for the non-RISCV parts of the chip and chipset. They could literally design a drop-in replacement in their current motherboards and go straight to market years before all this stuff gets tested and shipped by the competition. Just as important, they have the business connections and reputation of delivering. Those may be less tangible, but the best chip in the world doesn't mean anything if you can't move it to customers. They seem very strongly positioned even if they never have any input into the ISA itself.

jabl 5y ago
They have an even stronger position in x86, where they are the dominant player in a duopoly, with new entrants denied access. So yes, they might be interested in helping RISC-V in order to hurt Arm on the low end, but I'm sure they're not looking forward to RV eating a chunk of the x86 market.
- hajile 5y ago
  They are getting stomped by ARM on the high-end too. X2 is quite a bit faster per clock than every x86 (except maybe golden cove). It's only a matter of time before these start flowing into the high-end market and disrupt. Jim Keller is currently overseeing a 6-issue RISC-V core (same width as Intel's latest/greatest golden cove chip) that will allegedly be open-sourced too. This is a very dangerous situation for them. It seems better to milk x86 for all it's worth while leveraging RISC-V for all it's worth. If they can offer custom x86 compatibility with their RISC-V designs, that's just one more way to ensure they cut out the rest of the market and keep their lead.