The F does not stand for free in a monetary sense. You will have to pay for the F1 chip, just as you have to pay nowadays for a copy of a GNU/Linux distribution on CD-ROMs. Of course, you're free to take the design and masks to your favorite fab and have a few batches manufactured for your own use.

Q2: Why not call it an O-CPU (where O stands for Open)?

A: There are some fundamental philosophical differences between the Open Source movement and the original Free Software movement. We abide by the latter, hence the F.

The fact that a piece of code is labeled Open Source doesn't mean that your freedom to use it, understand it and improve upon it is guaranteed. Further discussion of these matters can be found here.

Tools

Q1: Which EDA tools will you use ?

A: There has been a lot of debate on this subject. It's mainly a war between Verilog and VHDL.

We'll probably use a combination of both.

Architecture

Q1: What's that memory-to-memory architecture I heard about ? Why not a register-to-register architecture like all other RISC processors?

A: It was an idea that was discussed for the F-CPU. It had several advantages over register-to-register architectures, like very low context switching latency (no registers to save and restore).

Q2: You're thinking about an external FPU ?

A: Maybe.

Q3: Why don't you support SMP?

A: SMP is an Intel-proprietary implementation of Symmetric Multi-Processing.

We'll probably try. If not in F1, in F2 :).

Performance

Q1: Wat can we expect in terms of performance from the F1 CPU?

A: Merced-killer. :-). No seriously, we hope to get some serious performance.

We think we can achieve good performance because we start from scratch (x86 is slower because it has to be compatible with older models). We're intend to have gcc/egcs as the main compiler for the F-CPU and port Linux too.

Compatibility

Q1: Will the F-CPU be compatible with x86 ?

A: No.

There will be NO binary compatibility between the F-CPU and x86 processors.

It should however run Windows emulators that include x86 CPU emulators such as Twin, as well as Windows itself under whole-PC emulators such as Bochs. In either case however you will need to run another operating system, such as GNU/Linux, and emulation will likely be fairly slow.

Q2: Will I be able to plug the F-CPU in a standard Socket 7, Super 7, Slot 1, Slot 2, Slot A motherboard?

A: It's an ongoing debate.

Q3: What OS kernels will the F-CPU support?

A: Linux will be ported first. Other ports may follow. The port of Linux will be developed simultaneously with the F-CPU development.

Q4: What programs will I be able to run on the F-CPU ?

A: We will port gcc to the F architecture. Basically the F-CPU will run all the software available for a standard GNU/Linux distribution.

Cost/Price/Purchasing

Q1: Will I be able to buy a F-CPU someday ?

A: We hope so.

Q2: How much will the F-CPU cost?

A: We don't know. It depends on how many are made.

The was an early slightly optimistic estimate that an F-CPU would cost approximately US$100, if 10000 were made.

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