The x86 set of instructions has been around for more than 30 years already and continues to be the most-popular for consumer’s applications. There is a lot of software that is already developed for personal computers and there are a lot more interesting and powerful programs to come. Nowadays mobile and handheld devices become more and more popular among the end-users, however, there are numerous platforms that may be incompatible between each other both in terms of hardware and software. As a result, now it does make sense to bring one and universal platform for such kind of devices. Intel and ARM try to stick to the Xscale or ARM architecture, but, of course, the most logical choice for the consumer is the x86. There are a lot of developers and a lot of already made software for the x86 platform, hence, it will be much easier for all to use the x86 in handheld devices as well.

As I have read over the News.com web-site, a not very well-known company called MemoryLogix will unveil an x86 processor for handheld devices at the Microprocessor Forum later this week. The chip runs at only 400MHz but is energy efficient and incredibly small, according to the representatives. As stated by the source, the area of the chip is only about 3 square millimetres.

Although the x86 architecture for the handhelds looks great in almost all the terms, its path to the world is full of challenges. The problem is that Intel does not like to license the x86 to all the companies around. Only the biggest of them are usually granted in massive cross-licensing deals. Hence, MemoryLogix may not be able to market the processors successfully because the microprocessor giant from Santa Clara will simply not allow them, as it does with VIA and their Pentium 4 supporting chipsets.

I should point out that MemoryLogix will not manufacture anything by themselves, but sell the right to make and market the actual devices to bigger semiconductor companies. Hence, if these companies already have the x86 license, there will be no problems to make the MemoryLogix’s CPU popular, provided that the maker of actual chips is very interested in it and will make continuous efforts to push them on the market.

More information about the CPU will be available later this week.