News on China's scientific and technological development.

SamuraiBlue

Captain
The Obama administration only banned Intel from selling Xenon chips to China, and not all chips based on Intel's x86 design, so it's still lawful for AMD to sell to China. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump administration lifts the ban, since it's stated purpose of impeding China supercomputer development wasn't successful.

Selling chips and providing the license are completely two different business transactions.
Like I said AMD does not own X86 chip design license, it's Intel's intellectual property and only Intel can provide it.
 

ahho

Junior Member
I am sure AMD cannot sell X86 license, but they can sell their chip to China. I think one of the big reason is that AMD owns X64 and made a pact within Intel to cross license the instructions set
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
I am sure AMD cannot sell X86 license, but they can sell their chip to China. I think one of the big reason is that AMD owns X64 and made a pact within Intel to cross license the instructions set

I think @SamuraiBlue referring to post #3022 (page 303) that AMD announced that it had inked a deal worth $293M to license X86 to Tianjin Haiguang

... not just selling AMD chip to China
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
Interesting, I wonder if they are actually licensing the x86 instruction or if the article is trying to say AMD is licensing their x86 architecture, which could mean different things.

to me ... that same thing as x86 instruction and architecture belong to Intel, not AMD
 

In4ser

Junior Member
Yeah even Microsoft is moving away from x86 with ARM chip support and Win32 API emulation. They're still trying to create a single unified OS for both phone, tablet and PC
 

SamuraiBlue

Captain
Yeah even Microsoft is moving away from x86 with ARM chip support and Win32 API emulation. They're still trying to create a single unified OS for both phone, tablet and PC
Aughh, the industry in general is moving away from 32 bit and you are implying that WIN32 is a move forward?
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Sounds like you don't work in software development. Thinking of building software as building a house. Material for houses may change over the years but the basic framework, design principles change much much more slowly. How the codes/components get put together is more or less the same regardless what technologies (c/c++/java/swift/ruby/python) you use. Writing a small piece of software may be very different when using different tech, but when you are developing a large solution you will need the experience to know how to put all the pieces together efficiently and securely

Not necessarily. In software, experience cuts both ways, and can be a hinderence as much as a boon.

One of the key reasons that modern day computer programmes are getting so monstrously large is precisely because of bad experience.

A lot of the time, maybe even most of the time, coders stitch together and/or repurpose existing codes rather than start with a clean slate.

That can save time when writing the code, but it also often needlessly bloats the code and slows the programme, where needless calculations are made, because the original piece of code repurposed needed to calculated two things, but you only need it to one one of those calculations in your programme, but cannot be bothered to fully disintengle the two functions of the old code.

So experienced coders could probably get something ready a lot faster than a more talented coder without their experience, but the more talented novice could approach the problem with fresh, new eyes, and potentially come up with a far cleaner, more eligant, and efficient way to tackle the problem at hand.

That is just the efficiency side of things, there is also the security implications.

On some levels, more established codes could be more secure, as they have been debugged for longer. But the flip side is that if you rely on experience and use the same code elements in a lot of places, if someone found a way to exploit a well established code element, that could open up a hell of a lot of software to the same expilot if they all used that code element.

My point is that it cuts both ways, and it will depend entirely on the circumstances, so it would be rather foolish to make any categorical pronouncements on what is best.
 
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