CLI-CPU

CLI-CPU is the open-source reference implementation of the Cognitive Fabric Processing Unit (CFPU) — a new category of processing unit that executes .NET Common Intermediate Language (CIL) bytecode natively in hardware, without JIT compilation, AOT translation, or interpreter layers. Alongside the familiar CPU / GPU / TPU / NPU family, the CFPU is the first MIMD actor-native processing unit: many small, independent CIL-native cores on a single chip, communicating exclusively through hardware mailbox FIFOs in a shared-nothing model. Instead of competing on single-core speed (a battle lost by picoJava and Jazelle decades ago), the CFPU eliminates cache coherency overhead entirely, enabling linear scaling with core count.

The companion project Neuron OS is the capability-based actor runtime co-designed with the CFPU hardware. It shapes the hardware requirements from day one, following the Apple M-series philosophy of OS/silicon co-evolution — but fully open-source.