Chinese Inventors to Reveal Quad-Core “Nearly x86” Microprocessor Next Year

From X-bit Labs: There were numerous companies trying to compete against Intel Corp. on the field of x86 microprocessors, but all of them have vanished into thin air. But Chinese Academy of Sciences hopes that it will be able to offer an alternative to products by AMD and Intel in the coming years.

The first central processing units (CPUs) developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences – Godson and Godson 2 (also known about Loongson and Loongson 2) – could allow building certain very low-cost products, but for something that required even minimal level of performance microprocessors by Advanced Micro Devices and Intel Corp. were compulsory. However, developers of Godson 3 hope that the forthcoming chips that are due in 2009 and 2010 will offer an alternative to AMD and Intel not only because relatively high performance, but also because of certain level of compatibility with x86 instructions.

The Godson 3 processor, which was recently discussed by its developers, is a 64-bit quad-core MIPS RISC chip that includes 200 extra instructions which allow to run x86 code on the CPU. The central processing unit will have integrated DDR2 memory controller. The chip is scheduled to arrive in 2009.

“The most interesting part of the chip is that they’re adding about 200 new instructions to assist with x86 compatibility. It won’t be an x86 processor. But the 200 instructions will optimize the x86 performance, said Tom Halfhill, an analyst at In-Stat, reports News.com web-site.

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