this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
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Technology

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Bootstrapping Your Own CPU (programming.dev)
submitted 1 month ago by tengkuizdihar@programming.dev to c/technology@beehaw.org
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Dear community,

Let's just say I'm a country that wants to create my own CPU only using knowledge/tech/techniques that are in the open and nothing proprietary. When I said CPU, let's just say something that can run a C program, and eventually the linux kernel.

Is creating one out of publicly accessed knowledge and resources even possible, and how minuscule the tolerance need to be? Is there even a successful open CPU project out there?

I'm asking this because of an anxiety that I have when knowing only several companies in the world know how to create a CPU.

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[–] IrritableOcelot@beehaw.org 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you are truly starting from scratch, shooting for Raspberry Pi performance isn't starting small, thats a huge goal. It's a complex chip built on a fairly modern process node (28 nm for the 4B) using the second-best-established architecture.

The reasonable goal to shoot for would be an 8086-like chip, then perhaps something like a K3-II or early Pentium, then slowly work your way up from there.

[–] tengkuizdihar@programming.dev 1 points 1 month ago

yeah, comment above really gave me a picture that 16nm is really small