
Made in China 8-core x86 CPU arrives to market - vo2maxer
https://www.techspot.com/news/83819-made-china-8-core-x86-cpu-arrives-market.html
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JPLeRouzic
I wonder if it is possible to hack the microcode of such CPU to implement a
different architecture?

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numpad0
> The VIA Nano Isaiah core design, built by Centaur, would serve as the
> architecture for Zhaoxin's first CPUs.

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simonblack
Unintended consequences of blocking semiconductor sales to China.

It's the perennial question for all company CEOs:

Do we 'buy built' which is quicker, cheaper and easier, but leaves us
dependent on external manufacturers?

Or, do we 'build our own' which is expensive in terms of development time and
energy and wasted dead-ends, but will eventually make us independent of
external manufacturers?

Most CEOs tend to choose the cheaper 'buy built' path. As did Huawei with US
semiconductors. But if they are forced to take the 'build our own' path, as
when Trump banned US technological sales to Huawei, the end effect will be for
the US manufacturers to miss out completely on the already huge, and growing
further, Chinese market for semiconductors.

(And that's not counting the future competition between the massive new
Chinese semiconductor manufacturers and the US semiconductor manufacturers who
previously held the monopoly. Why are people in the West seemingly blind to
the fact that, all by itself, the _internal_ Chinese market is larger than the
_whole_ of the Western market?)

