Beastian (noemail.delete@this.aol.com) on April 19, 2019 9:05 am wrote:
> Does anyone think that the upcoming expiry of patents on the core x86-64 instruction set
> which includes SSE2, maybe sooner than 2023 (as the Athlon 64 was introduced in 2003) would
> open the flood gates for third party implementations of compatible processors?
>
> The basic architecture including importantly the memory model could freely be implemented in hardware
> once that core instruction set falls out of patent; I'm unclear about the amount of traction that later
> Intel instructions have gotten in common software, but emulation could at least ensure compatibility.
> Competition in x86 implementation has languished for long stretches of time, though it has seen a resurgence
> as of late; compare that to the ARM ecosystem which has seen vast improvements due to a larger number
> of implementers: Apple, Qualcomm, nVidia, Samsung, ARM, Applied Micro and Cavium.


Who would be interested in making an x86-64 compatible CPU? I know, I know, someone is going to suggest "Apple" so they can have a dual x64/ARM64 SoC for the Mac to ease the transition, but ignoring them, who?

Some may point to China, but AMD already sells some pretty cheap CPUs so unless they can do a good enough design to match higher end AMD/Intel CPUs what's the point? And if they were going to do it, they wouldn't wait until the patents expire - they would have started the design years ago so it could be ready when the patents expire. Surely someone would have caught wind of it by now.