Intel x86S Paves Way For 64-bit Only Architectures: Removing Legacy Modes & Simplifying Design

Intel has actively started investigating enhancements that future x86S architectures would bring with 64-bit-only solutions.

The Intel 64 architecture has been around for over 20 years & due to its widespread use, Microsoft entirely dropped 32-bit versions of its latest operating system. Currently, Intel's firmware no longer supports non-UEFI64 operating systems natively but they do carry some form of legacy support to run 32-bit applications where there's a need. However, as the company moves forward, Intel is now proposing a brand new architecture which is referred to as x86S and is basically a 64-bit mode-only architecture that removes all previous legacy support.

Intel® 64 architecture designs come out of reset in the same state as the original 8086 and require a series of code transitions to enter 64-bit mode. Once running, these modes are not used in modern applications or operating systems.

An exclusively 64-bit mode architecture will require 64-bit equivalents of technologies that currently run in either real mode or protected mode. For example:

These modifications can be implemented with straightforward enhancements to the system architecture affecting the operating system only.

A 64-bit mode-only architecture removes some older appendages of the architecture, reducing the overall complexity of the software and hardware architecture. By exploring a 64-bit mode-only architecture, other changes that are aligned with modern software deployment could be made. These changes include:

While running a legacy 64-bit operating system on top of a 64-bit mode-only architecture CPU is not an explicit goal of this effort, the Intel architecture software ecosystem has sufficiently matured with virtualization products so that a virtualization-based software solution could use virtualization hardware (VMX) to deliver a solution to emulate features required to boot legacy operating systems.

News Source: Bionic_squash