Tuesday, October 15th 2024

Intel and AMD Form x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group

Intel Corp. (INTC) and AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) today announced the creation of an x86 ecosystem advisory group bringing together technology leaders to shape the future of the world's most widely used computing architecture. x86 is uniquely positioned to meet customers' emerging needs by delivering superior performance and seamless interoperability across hardware and software platforms. The group will focus on identifying new ways to expand the x86 ecosystem by enabling compatibility across platforms, simplifying software development, and providing developers with a platform to identify architectural needs and features to create innovative and scalable solutions for the future.

For over four decades, x86 has served as the bedrock of modern computing, establishing itself as the preferred architecture in data centers and PCs worldwide. In today's evolving landscape - characterized by dynamic AI workloads, custom chiplets, and advancements in 3D packaging and system architectures - the importance of a robust and expanding x86 ecosystem is more crucial than ever.
"We are on the cusp of one of the most significant shifts in the x86 architecture and ecosystem in decades - with new levels of customization, compatibility and scalability needed to meet current and future customer needs," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. "We proudly stand together with AMD and the founding members of this advisory group, as we ignite the future of compute, and we deeply appreciate the support of so many industry leaders."

"Establishing the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group will ensure that the x86 architecture continues evolving as the compute platform of choice for both developers and customers," said Lisa Su, AMD Chair and CEO. "We are excited to bring the industry together to provide direction on future architectural enhancements and extend the incredible success of x86 for decades to come."

The advisory group aims to unite industry leaders to shape the future of x86 and foster developer innovation through a more unified set of instructions and architectural interfaces. This initiative will enhance compatibility, predictability and consistency across x86 product offerings. To achieve this, the group will solicit technical input from the x86 hardware and software communities on essential functions and features. Collaboration will facilitate the creation of consistent and compatible implementations of key x86 architectural features and programming models, extending across all sectors - including data centers, cloud, client, edge and embedded devices - ultimately delivering downstream benefits to customers. The intended outcomes include:
  • Enhancing customer choice and compatibility across hardware and software, while accelerating their ability to benefit from new, cutting-edge features.
  • Simplifying architectural guidelines to enhance software consistency and standardize interfaces across x86 product offerings from Intel and AMD.
  • Enabling greater and more efficient integration of new capabilities into operating systems, frameworks and applications.
As vigorous competitors, Intel and AMD at the same time share a history of industry collaboration focused on platform-level advancements, the introduction of standards, and security vulnerability mitigation within the x86 ecosystem. Their joint efforts have shaped key technologies, including PCI, PCIe, Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI). Both companies also played a pivotal role in developing USB, a vital connectivity standard for all computers regardless of the processor. This advisory group takes this industry collaboration to the next level for the benefit of the entire computing ecosystem and as a catalyst for product innovation.

CEO Quotes from Founding Members
Broadcom Inc. President and CEO Hock Tan
"We are at a crossroads in the history of computing. The x86 architectural decisions we make today will affect programming models, frameworks and systems for decades to come. Broadcom looks forward to lending its industry perspective to the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group as a pioneer in silicon development and x86 virtualization with VMware."

Dell Technologies Chairman and CEO Michael Dell
"Dell has a long history of working with the x86 platform. We look forward to collaborating with Intel, AMD and fellow x86 Advisory Group members to continue driving innovation for our customers and partners."

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian
"Google is excited to join this x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group to help shape the future of computing. Taking a pan-industry approach ensures consistent implementations, which aligns with Google's commitment to fostering innovation and providing the best possible experience for our developers and users. By simplifying and standardizing across the x86 ecosystem, we can unlock new levels of performance, efficiency, and ease of use, ultimately accelerating the development and adoption of cutting-edge technologies."

Hewlett Packard Enterprise President and CEO Antonio Neri
"HPE is honored to be a founding member of the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group, helping shape a consistent future architecture with innovative new features that meet customers' evolving computing needs."

HP Inc. President and CEO Enrique Lores
"We are honored to join Intel, AMD, and other advisory group members to advance the x86 architecture. At HP, we believe that the future of work will require technology that drives growth and fulfillment for both employees and the companies they work for. Building a more efficient, secure, and customizable x86 ecosystem will help accelerate this evolution."

Lenovo Chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang
"Lenovo is delighted to be one of the founding members of this important new advisory group, given our role in the industry for the past decade. When we work together as an industry ecosystem, we all benefit, but more importantly, so do our customers. I'm looking forward to sharing our technical expertise as we collectively accelerate the growing x86 market across client, edge and cloud."

Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella
"x86 has been foundational to modern computing for over four decades, and we want to ensure it continues to evolve and benefit everyone going forward. By bringing together partners across the industry, the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Board will play a critical role in shaping future x86 architectural features and help drive software consistency and standard interfaces."

Oracle CEO Safra Catz
"The x86 architecture has had a profound impact on the computing industry, driving innovations through constant evolution. As a long-time partner with both AMD and Intel, Oracle is proud to be a founding member of the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group. We are committed to addressing customer needs by delivering technological advancements and fostering collaboration across the ecosystem."

Red Hat President and CEO Matt Hicks
"Red Hat believes that hybrid cloud computing represents the path forward for innovative IT, from cloud-native applications and services to AI and intelligent workloads. Forming the foundation of these great leaps forward is architecture choice, specifically standardized and well-defined architectures like x86. We're pleased to be a founding member of the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group and look forward to serving as part of the industry vanguard in furthering x86 technologies as a cornerstone of IT's innovative future."
Sources: AMD, Intel
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33 Comments on Intel and AMD Form x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group

#26
Vayra86
DavenHopefully this is prelude to Intel exiting the chip design market such that the industry relies on AMD products manufactured by Intel fabs.
Euh, sounds great, a bit like one step forward and five steps back, that.
Visible NoiseLots of armchair CEO’s ITT.
If it were up to TPU we would have ended world hunger, war, and general discomfort decades ago. Duh.
Posted on Reply
#27
Vya Domus
Craptacularand we saw the recent Windows laptops that are ARM based CPUs
Yeah and they kind of suck, AMD APUs are way better, Apple can use ARM effectively in their products because they do have the aforementioned money and IP to pull that off but they still only make up a tiny share of the total market.
Posted on Reply
#28
TheLostSwede
News Editor
TristanX- currently both AMD and Intel chipsets are pretty independent from CPU, and communicate with it using PCIE under diffrent names. Currently at hardware level there is nothing to prevent use Ryzens with Intel chipsets and vice versa. Making PCH as CPU-vendor-independent, could be best way to push truly innovative features to be more competitive., For now they just use 'proprietary refresh'.
You'd think, but it's not quite that simple. The main bus, sure, it's all PCIe, but all the other interfaces such as SPI (or DeSPI as Intel is using) and all the little custom bits that makes the chipset power up alongside the CPU and so on. You have to remember that the chipset block diagrams are vastly simplified and there are more things than just PCIe going on. Just look at the Thunderbolt and USB4 host controllers, they require that extra cable which is home to at least a couple of different interfaces (including USB 2.0, which isn't relevant in this case).
TristanX- long use AM4 socket do not prevented adding new features. At Intel you have insanity with LGA 1156, 1155, 1150, 1151 and 1200. Do few pins difference really justify any innovation barriers ? On most mobos you can find third party chipsets for sound / wifi / lan etc
Socket, sure, but it was still a limiting factor and if we look at the AM4 chipsets, there was a huge difference between the X370 and X570 chipset, we went from PCIe 2.0 to PCIe 4.0, something that couldn't have happened without changing the chipset, something you're suggesting shouldn't happen, at least from how you wrote your initial post.
Yes, Intel is changing more than should be required, but AMD only allowed some of the backwards compatibility after there was a community uproar over AMD saying they wouldn't do it. Has that ever happened to Intel?

The reason for third party peripheral chips is because both AMD and Intel lacks the expertise and/or don't want to compete in low margin businesses. Those are also far less complex than a motherboard chipset. As an example, when USB 3.0 was all the rage, AMD made an awful integrated USB 3.0 host controller in their A68 chipset I believe and all their so called FCH chipsets that was slower than any of the third party options in the market. At least they didn't make this mistake with USB4.
TristanX- x86S is just too small change. They should make new ISA with 20% instructions, clear programming model and without legacy burden. Then OS / apps will begin to use new ISA, while old soft continue to use current legacy ISA. At some point legacy ISA could by dunped from hardware and be accesible only via emulation.
Well, that's your opinion and there's no way you could drop 80% of the instruction set, so I'm not even going to discuss this with you.
Vayra86If it were up to TPU we would have ended world hunger, war, and general discomfort decades ago. Duh.
Indeed, as we would've eradicated humankind...
Posted on Reply
#29
Zareek
Minus InfinityDare I say, grant Nvidia a license o_O


Horrifically bad idea to allow AMD to become Intel mk II. We need more players not less. Look at what has happened due to Nvidia's dominance.
I totally agree on the second part, but Nvidia is not the company we want making CPUs. They've proven over and over that they will use their market position and power to push everyone around, including consumers. All corporations are not to be trusted and put profits above all else. Nvidia is however, dare I say it, EVIL! Intel isn't much better, but it's been a while since they had the market power to be consumer abusive.
Posted on Reply
#30
igormp
TristanXFor first step, let they standardize chipsets and sockets, so user can replace Intel CPU with AMD CPU, without changing mobo.
That's irrelevant, can't really standardize chipsets and sockets when those are related to features that need updating in the end. No other CPU features this.
You seem to be only thinking of desktop usage, whereas this partnership is more about the ISA itself, and the main selling points of x86 are server and laptops, desktops are just an afterthought at this point.
TristanXThen second step, let create x86R (reset), with reduced instructions, well designed memory models, vector processing
X86S already goes away with some legacy boot stuff, I guess this group will make it easier to coordinate a push to this update.
What other memory model do you want to see in the ISA?
What other vector processing apart from SSE/AVX/AVX512 would you like to see?
TristanXusability for phones / tablets, and other aspects that are currently messed and convoluted.
Phone/tablet stuff is not really related to the ISA at all, but rather how AMD and Intel design their chips.
Apple's M lineup could've been x86 as well and would've been great. ISA is just a matter of front-end and decoder for your compiler to target, after all.
TristanXFinal third step, license it for any other company that want use any core existing (Intel or AMD) or make their custom core and need only ISA.
That I agree with. Nvidia for sure would be interested in licensing such core.
TheLostSwedeIntel tried phones and lost billions on it, x86 isn't suitable for that form factor, let's not go there.
ISA has nothing to do with that, it's just a matter of the underlying µarch. Intel just shoved a crappy desktop-level CPU in there and tried to run with it.
TheLostSwedeLicensing cores aren't going to work, neither company has designed their architectures for something like that and it would not be cost effective, as x86 chips are not like Arm or RISC-V that was designed for modularity.
They haven't done so, but nothing would stop them planning for that. Licesing the ISA itself is also an option, ARM makes a profit from both ways.
Vya DomusARM cannot ever really succeed in displacing x86 in that market because it's not backed by any huge corporation with billions to spare on R&D and the IPs of AMD or Intel, that's what you need to consistently deliver competitive chips year after year.
www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/grace-cpu/
cloud.google.com/blog/products/compute/google-cloud-introduces-tau-vms
www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/arm/
aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/

Those look pretty big to me. But I don't get the fixation folks have with one ISA replacing another, nothing stops both from just co-existing, it's as simple as that.
ARM CPUs are just another CPU, pretty much like how you can pick between Epyc or Xeon when spinning up instances in your favorite cloud provider.
TristanXThey should make new ISA with 20% instructions, clear programming model and without legacy burden.
And see no adoption whatsoever because no one is going to recompile everything for this new ISA without backwards compatibility for their current software?
And what benefit would such reduced ISA have? Even ARM keeps piling up new instructions with each new revision.
Posted on Reply
#31
TheLostSwede
News Editor
igormpISA has nothing to do with that, it's just a matter of the underlying µarch. Intel just shoved a crappy desktop-level CPU in there and tried to run with it.
Well, it clearly has something to do with it, as it simply doesn't seem to be possible to "compact" it down in the same way Arm has with their ISA.
igormpThey haven't done so, but nothing would stop them planning for that. Licesing the ISA itself is also an option, ARM makes a profit from both ways.
Well, what's stopping them is that Intel and AMD owns different part of the ISA and if one or the other company says no, it's not happening. x86/amd64 is not unified, nor controlled by a single entity, which is why it would be a lot harder to license. Obviously we used to have Centaur/VIA doing their stuff, but that was always a bit janky and now that's in the hands of Zhaoxin, but it's not exactly progressing at any sensible pace, so it's way behind and simply not competitive.
Posted on Reply
#32
igormp
TheLostSwedeWell, it clearly has something to do with it, as it simply doesn't seem to be possible to "compact" it down in the same way Arm has with their ISA.
No, that's a matter of µarch. Intel did a shitty µarch back then, that was it.
ARM has many different µarches going around, from big server ones (such as the neoverse cores), to smaller ones, all under the same ISA.
You won't be getting an AmpereOne core compact enough to a phone, as an example.
TheLostSwedeWell, what's stopping them is that Intel and AMD owns different part of the ISA and if one or the other company says no, it's not happening. x86/amd64 is not unified, nor controlled by a single entity, which is why it would be a lot harder to license.
Yeah, hence why this advisory group and them getting into agreement. If that will ever happen, or if they'll consider this a good idea, who knows.
Posted on Reply
#33
Nhonho
dir_dARM is rising and in 10 years there could be nothing but ARM machines.
Yes, and that's the choice of a new generation...
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