godson-3

China chip an Intel rival?

China's Godson-3 chip is ambitious if anything. It proposes to be everything a world-class processor should be--and then some.

Developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it also has a larger goal: microprocessor independence for China. "Their motivation is pretty clear. They don't want to be totally dependent on the outside world for something as important as microprocessors," said Tom Halfhill, an analyst at In-Stat.

But its singular head-turning feature is the proposed Intel "x86" compatibility mode.

"The most interesting part of the chip is that they're adding about 200 new instructions … Read more