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The Exiled · 16.10.2024., 09:49

Citiraj:

Intel and AMD form x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group

Citiraj:

AVX-512 was proposed by Intel more than a decade ago—in 2013 to be precise. A decade later, the implementation of this instruction set on CPU cores remains wildly spotty—Intel implemented it first on an HPC accelerator, then its Xeon server processors, then its client processors, before realizing that hardware hasn't caught up with the technology to execute AVX-512 instructions in an energy-efficient manner, before deprecating it on the client. AMD implemented it just a couple of years ago with Zen 4 with a dual-pumped 256-bit FPU on 5 nm, before finally implementing a true 512-bit FPU on 4 nm. AVX-512 is a microcosm of what's wrong with the x86 ecosystem.

There are only two x86 CPU core vendors, the IP owner Intel, and its only surviving licensee capable of contemporary CPU cores, AMD. Any new additions to the ISA introduced by either of the two have to go through the grind of their duopolistic competition before software vendors could assume that there's a uniform install base to implement something new. x86 is a net-loser of this, and Arm is a net-winner. Arm Holdings makes no hardware of its own, except continuously developing the Arm machine architecture, and a first-party set of reference-design CPU cores that any licensee can implement.

On Tuesday, 15th October, Intel and AMD jointly announced the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group. The two companies are equals in this group as x86 processor vendors. There are a few founding members that are big names in the tech industry, and a couple of eminent industry leaders. These include Dell, Broadcom, Google Cloud, HP, HPE, Lenovo, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Hat. The luminaries include Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, and Tim Sweeney of Epic Games. You can categorize the above list of founding members and luminaries into client-relevant and enterprise-relevant. Tim Sweeney is one of the biggest names in the gaming industry, with Unreal Engine dominating all gaming platforms. Linux is predominantly an enterprise OS—no, Android is not a Linux distribution, it's a highly differentiated OS with its own APIs, which happens to use the Linux kernel.

The x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group is being set up to prevent exactly that from happening, where 11 years into its conception, AVX-512 has a wildly inconsistent implementation within Intel and AMD, and their product stacks, and so ISVs would rather not implement it. x86 suffers competitiveness in performance against other machine architectures and their instruction-sets. The Advisory Group's main aim is to ensure the latest ISA and hardware interfaces are jointly developed, implemented, and there is compatibility across the ecosystem, so future technology is more predictable, and the ISVs can respond better to them.

The Ecosystem Advisory Group does not aim to standardize the x86 core, just the ISA.
It is a means for the ISV ecosystem to constantly tell Intel and AMD what they expect, and for the two companies to deliver on them.

Izvor: TechPowerUp