[Linux creator] Linus Torvalds prays Intel will adopt Yamhill

The Inquirer ^ | July 29, 2002 | Inquirer Staff

[JameRetief]

Linus Torvalds prays Intel will adopt Yamhill

And so adopt AMD's X86-64

By INQUIRER staff: Monday 29 July 2002, 11:26

A POSTING BY Linus Torvalds on the LINUX KERNEL newsgroup yesterday has him praying that Intel will adopt its secret "Yamhill" project and turn to the ways of X86-64 righteousness.

Torvalds, who had a key part to play in Transmeta's fortunes at startup, says in the post that Linux developers are "generally praying that AMD's X86-64 succeeds in the market."

That, he says, would force Intel to make Yamhill its standard 64-bit platform and allow for improvements in the Linux kernel.

But Torvalds reckons that making everything truly 64-bit might well be years away.

Intel has repeatedly said during the course of this year that it is sticking with the Itanium design, a fact that's also demonstrated in its roadmaps, which now curve forwards to 2004.

Intel's Prescott has "Prescott New Instructions" (PNI), as we also revealed earlier, but the exact nature of these new instructions is a mystery known only to Intel architects and ex-architects.

The real acid test will come next year, we reckon. Opteron tier one wins might concentrate Intel's mind, somewhat.

Intel would have to license the X86-64 code from AMD, a fact that might stick in its craw more than just a little.

And Intel positions the Itanium as a high end, "big tin" CPU, and sees its Xeon processors battling it out with the first generation of Hammers to arrive late this year, next year.

Transmeta has already licensed X86-64, as we revealed here.

We were mistaken about AMD freely licensing X86-64 to Intel however, as an executive at the chip firm confirmed a few weeks after that story.

A few weeks back we revealed that TMTA's unnamed 256-bit VLIW processor has sort of taped out already.

Transmeta processors could support both a Yamhill and an X86-64 CPU using code morphing. But the big question right now is, will it?

And as Eva Glass pointed out then, both Via and Nvidia are once again nosing around Transmeta real estate.

Here's the Usenet post, via Google. µ

See Also
Intel Banias to topple Transmeta from Sony perch
Transmeta may well lay off chunk of staff VLIW, and more
Intel's AMD X86-64 clone - doggone it
Time for Prescott New Instructions (PNI)
Intel's Prescott and Tejas -- Yamhill no future?
Intel won't produce AMD clone -- Otellini
Apology: Intel's X86-64 Skunkworks
Prescott to have Yamhill inside?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

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