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"Instead of building a custom command processor, Intel uses Movidius’s 32-bit LEON microcontrollers. LEON use the SPARC instruction set and run a real time oper
by int0x29 2y ago
"Instead of building a custom command processor, Intel uses Movidius’s 32-bit LEON microcontrollers. LEON use the SPARC instruction set and run a real time operating system."
Your Intel core now runs two ISAs and three OSs. Managment engine runs Minix (and used to use the ARC isa).
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- fpgamlirfanboy 2y agothis is very common. lots of companies around (e.g. cadence) that sell SIPs as synthesizable RTL for easy integration into chip designs (and lots of hardware companies buy these SIPs).
- stefan_ 2y agoIndeed, silicon design is long in its NPM left-pad phase. Which begs the question why it is still so open-source averse and patent-pilled.
- userbinator 2y agoIt's always weird to see Intel using "foreign" ISAs, but not too surprising for something they acquired. The ME's use of SPARC and ARC before that is more unusual; they could've at least used a 386/486-class core, or even the i860/960 if they wanted something RISC.
- int0x29 2y agoPretty sure ME is Intel Quark based now. Quark is intel's weird 32 bit x86 as a microcontroller chip.
- rbanffy 2y agoA 32-bit Linux-capable microcontroller at that. I still keep my Galileo board. Will probably assemble it into a picture frame and run a heterogeneous cluster with it and some of the other boards I accumulated over the years. This is Gibson, the 4 RPi Zero W's running Docker Swarm: https://twitter.com/0xDEADBEEFCAFE/status/1729863007755444620 https://twitter.com/0xDEADBEEFCAFE/status/172986300775544462...
- voxadam 2y ago> This is Gibson, the 4 RPi Zero W's running Docker Swarm: https://twitter.com/0xDEADBEEFCAFE/status/1729863007755444620 https://twitter.com/0xDEADBEEFCAFE/status/172986300775544462... You did it, you hacked the Gibson! Please tell me it has a slick 90s neon low poly 3D interface.
- rbanffy 2y agoNo. It's just an unassuming IKEA picture frame, but I can ssh into them.
- uuddlrlrbaba 2y agoRow row row your boat
- userbinator 2y agoQuark is basically a 486, with some Pentium instructions added.
- rbanffy 2y agoIt must be a bit depressing for Intel engineers that they are forced to keep themselves tied to the ever extending x86 ISA and can't explore all the other ISAs they use (or invented). The 860/960 generated a lot of buzz back then and there was some pretty capable hardware using it. Fortunately, with open-source becoming dominant in the data center and the relative ease of bootstrapping a new ISA on top of it, we will see some extra diversity in this space, but I don't think Intel will abandon x86 anytime soon (and "soon" is in almost geological scales here).
- samus 2y agoIntel could just as well become a pure fab and give up on designing processors. Switching to another ISA might tie them up for years before they can deliver state-of-the-art processors again. Intel can't afford that after the recent year's delays with switching to new nodes.
- watersb 2y agoIntel has been thinking in detail about a streamlined x86 architecture that would ditch all of the cruft: 64-bit only, no memory segmentation, no real mode. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/envisioning-future-simplified-architecture.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/t...
- Narishma 2y agoMore than two. It has x86_64 on the main CPU cores, x86 on the ME, SPARC on this NPU and whatever the iGPU ISA is called. And I wouldn't be surprised if there's an ARM microcontroller or three in there as well.
- anthk 2y agoDidn't some keyboards and mice use embedded Z80 or 6502 CPU's?
- celegans25 2y agoClones of the 8051 are pretty popular in that scenario, I know for sure at least one mouse manufacturer uses them and probably a ton more
- ithkuil 2y agoOne part of me is secretly glad SPARC lives on