Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
IA-32
Summary
IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called i386) is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarnation of x86 that supports 32-bit computing; as a result, the "IA-32" term may be used as a metonym to refer to all x86 versions that support 32-bit computing.
Within various programming language directives, IA-32 is still sometimes referred to as the "i386" architecture. In some other contexts, certain iterations of the IA-32 ISA are sometimes labelled i486, i586 and i686, referring to the instruction supersets offered by the 80486, the P5 and the P6 microarchitectures respectively. These updates offered numerous additions alongside the base IA-32 set including floating-point capabilities and the MMX extensions.
Intel was historically the largest manufacturer of IA-32 processors, with the second biggest supplier having been AMD. During the 1990s, VIA, Transmeta and other chip manufacturers also produced IA-32 compatible processors (e.g. WinChip). In the modern era, Intel still produced IA-32 processors under the Intel Quark microcontroller platform until 2019; however, since the 2000s, the majority of manufacturers (Intel included) moved almost exclusively to implementing CPUs based on the 64-bit variant of x86, x86-64. x86-64, by specification, offers legacy operating modes that operate on the IA-32 ISA for backwards compatibility. Even given the contemporary prevalence of x86-64, as of 2018, IA-32 protected mode versions of many modern operating systems are still maintained, e.g. Microsoft Windows (until Windows 10; Windows 11 requires x86-64-compatible processor for x86 versions), Windows Server (until Windows Server 2008; Windows Server 2008 R2 requires x86-64-compatible processor for x86 versions) and the Debian Linux distribution. In spite of IA-32's name (and causing some potential confusion), the 64-bit evolution of x86 that originated out of AMD would not be known as "IA-64", that name instead belonging to Intel's Itanium architecture.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related publications (1)
Related concepts (7)
IA-32
IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called i386) is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarnation of x86 that supports 32-bit computing; as a result, the "IA-32" term may be used as a metonym to refer to all x86 versions that support 32-bit computing. Within various programming language directives, IA-32 is still sometimes referred to as the "i386" architecture.
NetBSD
NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is available for many platforms, including servers, desktops, handheld devices, and embedded systems. The NetBSD project focuses on code clarity, careful design, and portability across many computer architectures. Its source code is publicly available and permissively licensed.
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular open-source BSD operating system, accounting for more than three-quarters of all installed and permissively licensed BSD systems. FreeBSD has similarities with Linux, with two major differences in scope and licensing: FreeBSD maintains a complete system, i.e.
Related courses (2)
PHYS-431: Quantum field theory I
The goal of the course is to introduce relativistic quantum field theory as the conceptual and mathematical framework describing fundamental interactions.
PHYS-739: Conformal Field theory and Gravity
This course is an introduction to the non-perturbative bootstrap approach to Conformal Field Theory and to the Gauge/Gravity duality, emphasizing the fruitful interplay between these two ideas.
Related lectures (55)
Vector Calculus: 3D Orientation and Cross Product
Covers 3D orientation, cross product, and volume calculations using mixed product in vector calculus.
Holography in Classical Gravity
Covers the concept of holography in classical gravity and its relation to string theory.
Isolation mechanisms
Explores isolation mechanisms in operating systems, focusing on process separation and hardware isolation in x86 architecture.