Currently, the vast majority of operating systems natively support 64-bit instructions. All home processors from AMD and Intel, for example, use the instruction set x86-64 (Intel 32-bit x86 with AMD 64-bit instructions). It has been the norm in the industry for more than 20 years, and 32-bit processors in the PC environment have been left behind.
What’s more, the latest versions of the Windows operating system, such as Windows 11, have only been released with 64-bit support and there is no 32 bit version. Even Intel’s UEFI firmware dropped support for 16-bit and 32-bit modes in 2020, after releasing the first 64-bit version in 2012, and companies like AMD have long stopped releasing 32-bit drivers.
With this in mind, Intel has published a investigation that are being carried out on the implications and the possibility of making the leap to a pure 64-bit architecture called X86-Sleaving behind support for 32-bit and even 16-bit instructions that still remain in today’s processors.
Although current operating systems are already 64-bit, It is true that there are still applications that work at 32 bits and that the OS have to manage (hence the “Program Files (x86)” folder next to “Program Files” for example), in addition to However, Intel In his study, he wonders if it really pays to continue developing processors with 64 and 32-bit support, or if it would be more beneficial to adapt those applications and software components to 64-bit to go directly to processors that only work with 64-bit instructions.
In this way, part of the complexity of the processors and software would be reduced, even so, 32-bit programs could continue to be supported by segmenting the 64-bit model.
At the moment, this is still just concepts and studies for the future, but it would not be surprising if, sooner rather than later, we see the next leap in the x86 architecture.
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