AMD docs show Zen 6 will adopt Intel's 'FRED' interrupt handling

Documents posted on AMD's website detail technical aspects believed to be of its next‑generation Zen 6 CPUs, with the most significant change being adoption of Intel's so‑called 'FRED' interrupt handling. That shift has been presented as evidence that Zen 6 could represent a major architectural overhaul rather than a relatively minor revision.

FRED stands for Flexible Return and Event Delivery. Linux creator Linus Torvalds commented that the Intel approach is preferable if one wants x86‑64 to endure and to improve exception handling and performance, noting that the 'F' historically stood for 'Fast' and appears to have been renamed 'Flexible'.

Observers have noted that AMD has previously tended to reserve major redesigns for certain Zen generations, with other generations being more incremental, and by that pattern a larger redesign might have been expected later. However, that characterization is open to interpretation and does not rule out a bigger upgrade for Zen 6.

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