As the inventor of the x86 instruction set – Intel Corp. – remains tight-lipped over Nvidia Corp.’s plans to enter the market of x86 system-on-chip (SoC), Advanced Micro Devices, the world’s second producer of x86 microprocessors, claims that it is virtually impossible to enter the x86 chip market these days.

For a while Nvidia has been claiming that performance and capabilities of central processing units (CPUs) are losing their importance for end-users, whereas the significance of graphics processing units (GPUs) is on the rise. However, Nvidia fully understands that without microprocessors actual devices will not be able to run operating systems and productivity applications and recently the company went on saying that in several years time it may release an SoC featuring x86 processing core.

But there are many obstacles for Nvidia in CPU business: it does not have rights on x86 instruction set and has little, if any, experience in microprocessor design. All in all, AMD, the only third-party x86 microprocessor vendor that survived in competitive fight with Intel, claims that Nvidia does not have many chances in CPU biz.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...processor.html