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Legally, could a CPU manufacturer implement the unencumbered ISA in hardware and have a separate corporate entity provide a low-level software compatibility tr
by speed_spread 1y ago
Legally, could a CPU manufacturer implement the unencumbered ISA in hardware and have a separate corporate entity provide a low-level software compatibility trap for the missing instructions? The CPU could even have functional equivalent (but ISA-incompatible) instructions to make it almost as fast. Kind of like third-party microcode?
- dogma1138 1y agoIn theory yes, the problem is that even x86 emulation in hardware in order to run x86 code natively without recompiling can drag you into a legal mess which any western company will avoid. NVIDIA got pinched for this over a decade ago. I’m not entirely sure how Qualcomm and Apple didn’t. But overall the more you try to make an x86 enabled alternative viable the more likely you’ll get served with papers and even if you’ll win it would take a decade and cost 100’s of millions to fight.