List of x86 manufacturers

Last updated

x86-compatible processors have been designed, manufactured and sold by a number of companies, including:

Contents

x86-processors for regular PCs

In the past:

x86-processors for embedded designs only

Auctor Maple SoC Ic-photo-Auctor--Maple-(486-CPU).png
Auctor Maple SoC

In the past:

Open source x86 cores

x86-SoCs for mobile devices

Manufacturing-only of x86-processors designed by others

In the past:

Manufactured and sold under its own name of x86-processors designed by others

Early Intel x86 CPU designs (up to the 80286) have in the past been second-sourced by the following manufacturers under licence from Intel: [21] [22]

Manufacturer8086/808880186/8018880286Notes
AMD YesYesYesLater developed independent x86 CPU designs.
Fujitsu YesYesYes
Harris Corporation YesNoYes
IBM NoNoYes
Intersil YesNoYesContinued to manufacture x86 CPUs after being spun off from Harris in 1999.
Matra Harris Semiconductors (MHS)YesNoNoJoint venture between Harris and Matra.
Matsushita YesNoNo
Mitsubishi YesNoNo
NEC YesNoNoLater developed independent x86 CPU designs.
OKI YesNoNo
Renesas YesNoNoContinued Intersil's 8086/8088 product line after acquiring Intersil in 2017. [23]
Rochester Electronics (REI)YesYesYesManufactures other vendors' end-of-lifed chips under licence, on a built-to-order basis.
Siemens YesYesYes

Manufacturers that have served as second sources for other x86 CPUs include:

ManufacturerSecond source of
Sharp NEC V20/V30
Sony NEC V20/V30
Zilog NEC V20/V30
IBM Cyrix 486, 5x86, 6x86, 6x86MX
SGS-Thomson Cyrix 486, 5x86, 6x86
Texas Instruments Cyrix 486
Rochester Electronics AMD Élan SC300 [24]

Other/uncategorized

VendorProduct LineDescription
MontageJintidePairs Intel Skylake Xeon CPU cores with specially-designed I/O tracing and analysis chips to help provide improved security. Made as a multi-chip module, mainly for use in Chinese servers. [25] [26] [27]
Hygon DhyanaAMD/Hygon joint venture, making CPUs based on AMD Zen1 with some modifications for the Chinese market. [28]
MCST Elbrus 2000 Russian VLIW processor family, designed to run x86 code using dynamic binary translation.
Space Electronics Inc. / Maxwell 80386DXRPIntel 386 CPUs repackaged in special radiation-hardened packages for use in space. [29] [30]
Kombinat Mikroelektronik Erfurt U80601 East Germany 80286 clone, made in 1989-1990.
Eagle Memories, [31]
MC [32]
486DLCOEM rebranded variants of Cyrix 486DLC CPUs.
MitsubishiStraker [33] Intel SmartDie [34] based products, packaging an Intel-provided CPU die in OEM-specific packages, mainly for use in ultracompact laptops.
Fujitsu(Pentium) [35]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AMD</span> American multinational semiconductor company

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and fabless semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that designs, develops and sells computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyrix 6x86</span> Microprocessor

The Cyrix 6x86 is a line of sixth-generation, 32-bit x86 microprocessors designed and released by Cyrix in 1995. Cyrix, being a fabless company, had the chips manufactured by IBM and SGS-Thomson. The 6x86 was made as a direct competitor to Intel's Pentium microprocessor line, and was pin compatible. During the 6x86's development, the majority of applications performed almost entirely integer operations. The designers foresaw that future applications would most likely maintain this instruction focus. So, to optimize the chip's performance for what they believed to be the most likely application of the CPU, the integer execution resources received most of the transistor budget. This would later prove to be a strategic mistake, as the popularity of the P5 Pentium caused many software developers to hand-optimize code in assembly language, to take advantage of the P5 Pentium's tightly pipelined and lower latency FPU. For example, the highly anticipated first-person shooter Quake used highly optimized assembly code designed almost entirely around the P5 Pentium's FPU. As a result, the P5 Pentium significantly outperformed other CPUs in the game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intel</span> American multinational technology company

Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures and sells computer components and related products for business and consumer markets. It is considered one of the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturers by revenue and ranked in the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue for nearly a decade, from 2007 to 2016 fiscal years, until it was removed from the ranking in 2018. In 2020, it was reinstated and ranked 45th, being the 7th-largest technology company in the ranking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AMD K6</span> Computer microprocessor

The K6 microprocessor was launched by AMD in 1997. The main advantage of this particular microprocessor is that it was designed to fit into existing desktop designs for Pentium-branded CPUs. It was marketed as a product that could perform as well as its Intel Pentium II equivalent but at a significantly lower price. The K6 had a considerable impact on the PC market and presented Intel with serious competition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microprocessor</span> Computer processor contained on an integrated-circuit chip

A microprocessor is a computer processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circuitry required to perform the functions of a computer's central processing unit (CPU). The IC is capable of interpreting and executing program instructions and performing arithmetic operations. The microprocessor is a multipurpose, clock-driven, register-based, digital integrated circuit that accepts binary data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and provides results as output. Microprocessors contain both combinational logic and sequential digital logic, and operate on numbers and symbols represented in the binary number system.

x86 Family of instruction set architectures

x86 is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. The 8086 was introduced in 1978 as a fully 16-bit extension of 8-bit Intel's 8080 microprocessor, with memory segmentation as a solution for addressing more memory than can be covered by a plain 16-bit address. The term "x86" came into being because the names of several successors to Intel's 8086 processor end in "86", including the 80186, 80286, 80386 and 80486. Colloquially, their names were "186", "286", "386" and "486".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyrix</span> American microprocessor developer

Cyrix Corporation was a microprocessor developer that was founded in 1988 in Richardson, Texas, as a specialist supplier of floating point units for 286 and 386 microprocessors. The company was founded by Tom Brightman and Jerry Rogers.

Transmeta Corporation was an American fabless semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California. It developed low power x86 compatible microprocessors based on a VLIW core and a software layer called Code Morphing Software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VIA Technologies</span> Taiwanese Chipsets manufacturer

VIA Technologies, Inc. is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory. It was the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets. As a fabless semiconductor company, VIA conducts research and development of its chipsets in-house, then subcontracts the actual (silicon) manufacturing to third-party merchant foundries such as TSMC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile processor</span> Processor found in mobile devices

A mobile processor is a microprocessor designed for mobile devices such as laptops, and cell phones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Am386</span> AMD microprocessor clone

The Am386 CPU is a 100%-compatible clone of the Intel 80386 design released by AMD in March 1991. It sold millions of units, positioning AMD as a legitimate competitor to Intel, rather than being merely a second source for x86 CPUs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geode (processor)</span> Series of x86-compatible processor

Geode is a series of x86-compatible system-on-a-chip (SoC) microprocessors and I/O companions produced by AMD that was targeted at the embedded computing market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MediaGX</span> Series of x86-compatible processor

The MediaGX CPU is an x86-compatible processor that was designed by Cyrix and manufactured by National Semiconductor following the two companies' merger. It was introduced in 1997. The core is based on the integration of the Cyrix Cx5x86 CPU core with hardware to process video and audio output. Following the buyout of Cyrix by National Semiconductor and the sale of the Cyrix name and trademarks to VIA Technologies, the core was developed by National Semiconductor into the Geode line of processors, which was subsequently sold to Advanced Micro Devices.

In the x86 architecture, the CPUID instruction is a processor supplementary instruction allowing software to discover details of the processor. It was introduced by Intel in 1993 with the launch of the Pentium and SL-enhanced 486 processors.

The transistor count is the number of transistors in an electronic device. It is the most common measure of integrated circuit complexity. The rate at which MOS transistor counts have increased generally follows Moore's law, which observes that transistor count doubles approximately every two years. However, being directly proportional to the area of a die, transistor count does not represent how advanced the corresponding manufacturing technology is. A better indication of this is transistor density which is the ratio of a semiconductor's transistor count to its die area.

Montalvo Systems was a Silicon Valley start-up reportedly working on an asymmetrical, x86 capable processor similar to the Cell microprocessor. The processor was to use high-performance cores for performance-intensive threads, and delegate minor tasks to the simpler cores to save silicon and power. Matt Perry, former Transmeta CEO, was CEO and president of Montalvo; Peter Song, founder of failed x86 manufacturer MemoryLogix, was chief architect. Greg Favor was responsible for chip microarchitecture and Carlos Puchol was system and power architect. Another founding member, Kevin Lawton, of bochs and plex86 fame, was the processor simulator architect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UMC Green CPU</span>

The UMC Green CPU was an x86-compatible microprocessor produced by UMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor company, in the early- to mid-1990s. It was offered as an alternative to the Intel 80486 with which it was pin compatible, enabling it to be installed in most 80486 motherboards. All models had power management features intended to reduce electricity consumption.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zhaoxin</span> Chinese semiconductor chip manufacturer

Zhaoxin is a fabless semiconductor company, created in 2013 as a joint venture between VIA Technologies and the Shanghai Municipal Government. The company manufactures x86-compatible desktop and laptop CPUs. The term Zhàoxīn means million core. The processors are created mainly for the Chinese market: the venture is an attempt to reduce the Chinese dependence on foreign technology.

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