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by exDM69 3586 days ago
> We know Google has its own CPU made from scratch, now new OS...

CPU from scratch?

Are you referring to the LLVM backend for a "new" lanai ISA that they contributed recently? That wasn't designed by Google (but an existing networking equipment manufacturer) and it wasn't a general purpose CPU (integer only, no hardware dividers, made for running a TCP/IP stack and not much else).

This new kernel/OS is a bit more interesting than that. This seems to be targeted at end user devices, runs on x86 and ARM and has got some kind of userspace with UI going on.

It would be interesting to know what this is targeted at.

1 comments

Yes, I'm referring to what was described in this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11072085
Yeah, I assumed you meant that.

That's not something that's intended for consumer hardware, it's a special purpose CPU used in high-end networking hardware. It's been around for a while, the only real news in that was the upstreaming of the LLVM backend code. It did cause some unwarranted rumors, though.

A quick peek at the actual code reveals that it's not a general purpose CPU. A few web searches will tell that it's a custom CPU used in Myricom's LANAI networking products. There's a much older GCC backend and other compiler tools for it available too.