What you are talking about is sometimes called "basic research":
replyI actually do a phd in a closely related area.
Creating better tools to do research with is definitely part of the research process.
While there is a lot of work in general operating systems, those aimed to specifically do a lot of microarchitectural experiments is still undiscovered ground.
replySecurity researcher is a common term, there's also market research which doesn't look like it falls under your definition
replyI think I see your point: how can you "research" something that was carefully constructed by highly skilled engineers and scientists who have access to every design document, artifact, and test used to build the CPU.
replyI don't have an answer to your question but I think you're being unfairly downvoted.
Feel free to suggest a more suitable word. Research is usually defined against the the body of knowledge of the entity performing it and not all of humanity that ever lived.
replyYet a published peer-reviewed research should be against humanity. I am also curious whether such research can bring knowledge that apple don't know, otherwise even it is impressive, there is a level of sadness in it from my view.
replyNo it's against what's published by all of humanity. So if somebody knows something and hasn't published it, someone else can still scoop them.
replyYes your definition of research is incorrect.
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