Only 2 CPU Companies?

[GreenDance]

I only know of AMD and Intel, is that all the CPU Companies?, I would of thought there would of been more than that?, perhaps there is and I don't know about it?

Thanks!

[spoons]

VIA make the Nano CPU for netbooks, it's hotter but much faster than Intel's Atom.

[kevin11951]

Well, theres Via, and Arm, and a few others... PowerPC also comes to mind

[tgm4883]

Arm, apple (makes their own process for iphones/ipads), ibm (although I don't know if they still make their processors), sun (now oracle. Not sure if they still make Sparc processors)

[tgm4883]

also, a quick note. It takes a pretty large sum of money to get into the making processors business. That is probably why there isn't more

[CrimsonBizarre]

apple (makes their own process for iphones/ipads),

Designed by Apple, but made by Samsung.

[GreenDance]

also, a quick note. It takes a pretty large sum of money to get into the making processors business. That is probably why there isn't more

Really?, I guess that idea I had of setting up a CPU company goes out the window.

If buying bulk of OEM CPU's would they be cheaper than Retail?

[tgm4883]

Designed by Apple, but made by Samsung.
Well there is another company then, Samsung ;)

[Lucradia]

nvidia is on the market to get into making CPUs I believe, if they haven't already, as they make non-video chipsets.

Motorola made the CPUs for early apple computers.

[Dawei87]

doesn't Qualcomm also make cpu's?

[speedwell68]

Zilog Inc. Unless I am much mistaken the Z80 is still the most popular micro-processor in the world.

[Redache]

There are a lot more than you think. Everything that has a processor in it that isn't a Desktop/Server/Laptop/Netbook will more than likely not be Intel/AMD. Qualcomm are a pretty good example of a big manufacturer of ARM processors.

[renkinjutsu]

Let's not forget Texas Instruments!

[GregBrannon]

If buying bulk of OEM CPU's would they be cheaper than Retail?

There is always the possibility of quantity price breaks for most any product. The wholesalers for electronics products are usually part houses, not the manufacturers themselves. You'll have to check with them for quantity price breaks.

[murderslastcrow]

ARM's pretty big if you consider all the cellphones out there that use it. Also, it's breaking into the netbook market quite nicely.

[oldsoundguy]

Noticed the mention that NVida is positioned to get into the processor business .. quite possible as they are very strongly positioned as far as capital. They OWE no one .. no DEBT. They aren't paying interest on borrowed money.
Now, as to IF they want to take that full bore plunge .. that is another story that only their management knows!
And their GPU equipped cards ARE more than just graphic processors now! .. certain programs recognize them as a processor core and utilize them as such NOW! (SETI from BOINC is one such program.)

[lisati]

Zilog Inc. Unless I am much mistaken the Z80 is still the most popular micro-processor in the world.

Beat me to it! I know of them because of the Z80, and they are still around.

[McRat]

There are probably 40 or more companies that make CPU's.

...

Freescale
Rabbit
Texas Instruments
Zilog (yup Z80's still sell)
Toshiba

Remember that everything from airplanes to zoometry devices have computers in them now. Routers, DVD players, cars, motorcycles, TV's, all have powerful computers in them. Few of these use Intel or AMD chips.

[Cam!]

In a few years, I wouldn't be surprised if ASUS tried their hand in CPU manufacturing.

[Redo]

Motorola also makes processors

[linux18]

Anything with a microprocessor ( pretty much anything electronic ) has a cpu made by some company and I'm surprised no-one has said SONY you know with their factories manufacturing dozens of different cpus ( the 180 GFLOP CELL comes to mind.... that cpu that powers the ps3 and many clusters around the world )
CELL BE FTW!
sorry fanboy talking

[mr clark25]

i have heard that some company is goning to make a cpu-gpu combo.... (i want to see this)


you also cant forget cyrix... (think i spelled it right... lol)

[McRat]

VIA apparently is really big. (http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/nano/)

[MooPi]

ARM doesn't manufacture chips but designs them if I'm not mistaken. They let everyone buy a license to manufacture their designs and that is how they make their money.

[BuffaloX]

Loongson make MIPS chips

[kevin11951]

Anything with a microprocessor ( pretty much anything electronic ) has a cpu made by some company and I'm surprised no-one has said SONY you know with their factories manufacturing dozens of different cpus ( the 180 GFLOP CELL comes to mind.... that cpu that powers the ps3 and many clusters around the world )
CELL BE FTW!
sorry fanboy talking

Actually something in the back of my head is telling me that...

The PS3 broadband cell was manufactured (and i believe designed) by Motorola and IBM...

[Lucradia]

ARM doesn't manufacture chips but designs them if I'm not mistaken. They let everyone buy a license to manufacture their designs and that is how they make their money.

ARM's pretty big if you consider all the cellphones out there that use it. Also, it's breaking into the netbook market quite nicely.

Neither.

ARM is an arch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture) more so than a company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Holdings).

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

Designed by Apple, but made by Samsung.

not designed by apple really. they ARE ARM processors.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/09/ipad_samsung/

[neoargon]

Why only two processor companies in th PC market ? and only one architecture(x86)?

[Khakilang]

2 CPU, Intel and AMD. 2 GPU, nVidia and ATI, 2 desktop, Gnome and KDE. But only 1 great Distro.

[Macskeeball]

Motorola also makes processors

Are you sure they still do that? I was under the impression that they spun that whole division off as Freescale a few years ago in order to focus on cell phones, but I may be wrong. Someone please correct me if I am.

[HappinessNow]

Embedded CPU architectures
ARM's ARM Architecture
Atmel's AVR architecture
Microchip's PIC architecture
Texas Instruments's MSP430 architecture
Intel's 8051 architecture
Zilog's Z80 architecture
Western Design Center's 65816 architecture
Hitachi's SuperH architecture
Axis Communications' ETRAX CRIS architecture
Power Architecture (formerly PowerPC)
EnSilica's eSi-RISC architecture

Microcomputer CPU architectures
pre-x86
x86
Intel's IA-32 architecture, also called x86-32
x86-64 with AMD's AMD64 and Intel's Intel 64 version of it
Motorola's 6800 and 68000 architectures
MOS Technology's 6502 architecture
Zilog's Z80 architecture
Power Architecture (formerly IBM POWER and PowerPC)
The Advanced RISC Machines' (originally Acorn) ARM and StrongARM/XScale architectures

Workstation/Server CPU architectures
DEC's Alpha architecture
HP's PA-RISC architecture
Power Architecture (formerly IBM POWER and PowerPC)
Intel's Itanium architecture (formerly IA-64)
MIPS Computer Systems Inc.'s MIPS architecture
Sun Microsystems's SPARC architecture

Mini/Mainframe CPU architectures
Burroughs large systems architecture (1961-present) currently supported in the Unisys ClearPath/MCP series.
IBM's System/360, System/370, ESA/390 and z/Architecture (1964-present)
DEC's PDP-11 architecture, and its successor, the VAX architecture
UNIVAC 1100/2200 series architecture (currently supported by Unisys ClearPath IX computers)
MIL-STD-1750A - the U.S.'s military standard computer
AP-101 - the space shuttle's computer

Mixed core CPU architectures
IBM's Cell architecture (a general purpose architecture that uses a POWER4 based core and 8 RISC based co-processors)
CAS's Loongson 3
Parallax Propeller, a 160 MIPS multicore microcontroller with eight 32-bit RISC cores.

Historically important CPUs
EDSAC - the first practical stored-program computer
Apollo Guidance Computer, used in the moon flights
MIL-STD-1750 An early CPU, standardized for military and aerospace embedded systems.
MIPS R4000 - the first microprocessor to use a 64-bit datapath
Central Air Data Computer - the first microprocessorhttp://goo.gl/YkS4

[handy]

There is many hours of reading on CPUs available via the links on this site:

http://www.cpushack.com/links.html

There are links more general than just x86 towards the end of that page.

[Edit:] Someone may find The Chronology of Personal Computers interesting:

http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist/

[Edit2:] Great Microprocessors of the Past & Present:

http://jbayko.sasktelwebsite.net/cpu.html

[mcduck]

Actually something in the back of my head is telling me that...

The PS3 broadband cell was manufactured (and i believe designed) by Motorola and IBM...

Nope, it was developed together by Sony, IBM and Toshiba. The CPU's are manufactured by IBM (not so sure about the other two), and all three companies (and some others as well) use some variants of Cell in their products.

[andras artois]

Don't IBM make a bunch for super computers?

[Bachstelze]

Don't IBM make a bunch for super computers?

Most supercomputers that use IBM CPUs use PowerPC, the same architecture that was used on pre-Intel Macs for example. It's not a separate architeture.

[falcon1620]

I would like to add that a few Mainframe customers are converting over to Power Architecture machines, (yep you can still order them, in blades even) and moving their DB2 and Websphere apps to AIX, a proprietary Unix from IBM. For the guy who asked about Power Architecture formally PowerPC. I myself wouldn't consider a 1.2 million dollar DB2 cluster a "Super Computer" rather then a very large DB2 cluster, but that's I guess nit picking... Mainframe and PowerPC is still good for a lot of enterprise applications out there. So its not just "Super Computing", you guys probably have something processed in your day on a mainframe "Think Banking?..." ;) There are a lot of architectures out there big/small and old. Still in use and still kicking. Whoot Power7! ):P