[AskHN] Anyone working on an ASIC for a JavaScript engine?

[hargup]

Javascript runs everywhere, and all the time. Curious if something is trying to build a JS engine in an ASIC (Application specific Integrated Circuit)?f

Might be pretty useful in large data centers.

[blharr]

Not an expert, so a more nuanced view may help, but from my understanding, developing an ASIC even for a simple task is a lot of work. JavaScript is already optimized to run on a CPU. It has many different general roles as a language itself, and making an ASIC for JavaScript as a whole would basically be making a CPU itself.

Typically, you don't run a general code engine on an ASIC. They're more for a specific application, where it can do the job it was hard designed for, which is why they're so fast and efficient

[bhaney]

Javascript is popular enough that normal CPUs are becoming its ASICs

https://developer.arm.com/documentation/dui0801/h/A64-Floati...

[hargup]

Interesting. I guess we'll see more JS specific instructions in the CPU.