Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[chipguy]

It lately crossed my mind that the X86-logic part of the design is obsolete now.

I have been saying that since day one. The Alpha guys had
the right technical approach to x86 compatibility all along
but didn't have the money or influence to make it stick.


Do you expect a "clean" EPIC-design going forward?

Not until Tukwila/Tanglewood. It will probably be left in,
at least in part, in all I2 core based designs because it
would be a huge effort to fully remove. It may be partially
removed, which will of course render the feature unusable,
but the vestiges left in the IA64 portion of the core would
limit the benefits of doing so to less than that what could
be realized in a x86-less-from-the-ground-up implement-
ation of IA64 (as I hope Tukwila is).