Enter the dragon: This single-core central processing unit, known as Loongson, or "dragon chip," was designed and manufactured in China. Chinese engineers have the goal of deploying quad-core chips by 2009.
Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Researchers have revealed details of China's latest homegrown microprocessor.
In California last week, Chinese researchers unveiled details of a microprocessor that they hope will bring personal computing to most ordinary people in China by 2010. The chip, code-named Godson-3, was developed with government funding by more than 200 researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing Technology (ICT).
China is making a late entry into chip making, admits Zhiwei Xu, deputy director of ICT. "Twenty years ago in China, we didn't support R&D for microprocessors," he said during a presentation last week at the Hot Chips conference, in Palo Alto. "The decision makers and [Chinese] IT community have come to realize that CPUs [central processing units] are important."
Tom Halfhill, an analyst at research firm In-Stat, says that the objective for China is to take control of the design and manufacture of vital technology. "Like America wants to be energy independent, China wants to be technology independent," Halfhill says. "They don't want to be dependent on outside countries for critical technologies like microprocessors, which are, nowadays, a fundamental commodity." Federal laws also prohibit the export of state-of-the-art microprocessors from the United States to China, meaning that microchips shipped to China are usually a few generations behind the newest ones in the West.
Despite its late start, China is making rapid progress. The ICT group began designing a single-core CPU in 2001, and by the following year had developed Godson-1, China's first general-purpose CPU. In 2003, 2004, and 2006, the team introduced ever faster versions of a second chip--Godson-2--based on the original design. According to Xu, each new chip tripled the performance of the previous one.
Godson chips are manufactured in China by a French-Italian company called ST Microelectronics and are available commercially under the brand name Loongson, meaning "dragon chip." Loongson chips already power some personal computers and servers on the Chinese market, which come with the Linux operating system and other open-source software. "They use a lot of open-source software because it's free," says Halfhill. "The Chinese government wants to get as many PCs into schools and as many workplaces as they can."
With 45 million transistors and energy-saving features, the Atom processor could usher in a whole new era of mobile computing.
Massively multicore processors will enable smarter computers that can infer our activities.
We need to trust the gov't of Red China when they tell us that no patents are being infringed. After all, they were so truthful and honest during the Olympics, and they have done such a bang-up job combating piracy. Not to mention the notable reliability of their chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Such diligence on their part at establishing their reputation should not go unrewarded.
I agree, despite your sarcasm. China is an up-and-coming power in the world and it makes a lot of Americans nervous. I love to see more innovation in technology like this, regardless of the country producing it.
Looking at America's behaviour after WW2 when they "appropriated" all of the important German and Japanese patents (Bayer,Krups etc) by waiving the victors stick at Patent conventions and rewriting those that didnt suit, who are you to chastise the Chinese?
http://2cents.dailyreckoning.com/viewtopic.php?t=33916&sid=d24026240e058ee1a8d8b8044ce45c1f
The URL you cite does provide an interesting take on events, although I question the neutrality of the article based on the use of scare quotes around the word "holocaust" -- implying that the author does not actually believe such an event occurred, or was deliberately inflated.
It's also worth mentioning that the United States was hardly alone in carving up Germany's intellectual property -- the Soviet Union (or "Russians" as they are referred to in the linked article) were just as guilty, yet you don't mention them in your comment. Selective blindness on your part, perhaps?
The fact is, we took their scientists too, not just their patents. Many of these people could have stood trial for war crimes, but they were deemed too useful to languish in prison or to be executed. And another inconvenient fact is, many countries absorb the intellectual property and other valuable assets of those they conquer. The Chinese are no different in this regard, so trying to argue that Americans lack moral authority to comment is disingenuous at best.
More on topic: While I'm sure it's great that China is developing its own domestic source of CPUs, what concerns me is the potential security risk these chips would pose if imported into the U.S. (either on their own or incorporated into devices). There's also an economic impact -- the U.S. currently outsources a lot of development and fabrication for commodity chips (memory being a prime example), but CPU design has been mostly kept here in the States, or in strongly allied countries like Israel. You're welcome to try and turn that, too, into a referendum on how America isn't trustworthy, and that's your prerogative, but that doesn't mean America should trust the motives of China (or Russia, for that matter).
Ahhh, yes, we took their patents, and they now have a higher standard of living! Hmmmm, the favors we did by insisting they stop spending all that money on defense! And, they are too smart to go into Afghanistan and waste more money!
We may not be able to completely trust the Chinese government. But can we trust the US Government? Or can we trust anyone for that matter? What did the Bush Admin tell us about the "never-found" WMD in Iraq? I can't imagine what the West would react if the Chinese government did something like the Big American Lie in Iraq.
Also, have we heard any doping issues with any Chinese athletes? Why are they so common to the Western athletes, esp. the Americans?
China has achieved tremendous progress in its economy, political reform and democratic progress during the last 30 years. What have we, the Americans do during the last 30 years? Can we compare our progress to a that of China? What about 30 years from today? I hope we won't have to sneak into China to get green card there by then.
If one thing the West should learn about Chinese Gov't recently is to look at how they pull together the 2008 Olympic. The Chinese Gov't has the will and (human) power to make it happens. Intel will not have the cash nor will or power to compete with the Chinese Gov't (or another state owned or subsidized compnay) in the CPU market. Last, they can and will make sure the Chinese to buy their owned CPU regardless of what Intel offer. Intel investment and training in China will just teach them to get there faster. And it will happen much faster than you think.
So the Chinese built a CPU. Big deal. The CPU is old 20th century technology. Heck, it's even older than that because Charles Babbage understood the principles behind the CPU 150 years ago. I hate to break it to the Chinese (and the Western computer industry) but the CPU is not part of the future of computing.
I would be worried if the Chinese had perfected the first pure MIMD (multiple instruction, multiple data) vector core in which every instruction is a parallel vector unit. That would tell me that they had figured out the correct solution to the parallel programming crisis, among other things. Had they done so, it would have been cause for serious concern because the military (and economic) implications are scary indeed.
Heralding the Empending Death of the CPU:
http://rebelscience.blogspot.com/2008/08/heralding-impending-death-of-cpu.html
Without the recent boom in China, most of the "Western" countries would not have experienced such prosperous growth over the last 10 years through selling resources to China and using China's cheap labour costs to lower production costs of goods sold in these western countries to increase profits.
For those who has actually visited China, the major cities are ultra modern and wealth is abundant. Significant amount of money has been invested to support local R&D over the last 15 years and China is at a stage ready to compete in the certain sectors of the world market previously dominated by the west.
This will open up competition which means good news for consumers. Whether it is used for good or evil, it's all a matter of opinions. We can argue until the cows come home.
It's almost 2010 and we need to move on and be a little bit more open minded. The world is changing, the heart of the US financial system is failing impacting everyone including China.
no offence. america will not change unless she is extremely endangered. remember we assimilated a lot of ww2 german tech and concepts? we carried those to the cold war that held us in one piece. so what are we back to step 1? because our political and corporate do not feel threaten technologically. and why the heck are we still using 2g cellular networks and not hspda..... just proves that lack of understanding and involvement is self serving.
I doubt its virtualization.....onboard the chip....they are just adding instructions so that means that the actual instructions are onboard the chip, thus infringing patents and licenses....crafty Chinese....
The only way you can virtualize without a liscense is if its software virtualized
There are techniques that would allow this, such as code morphing. Via used this in the Crusoe line of processors.
When positive articles touch on the Chinese, we feel fear. What is that we (Americans)fear? My take is that we know the Chinese are hungry. Hungry in a way that Americans have not been in 50 years. More importantly the Chinese are not restricted by psycho social concerns as we are in America. They play to win, regardless of the human cost. That scares us more than anything because we know we have become a lethargic and complacent people; unable to compete on such a playing field. Yes, they steal, they lie, they cheat. The rules of the world have changed and in some small regard, stayed the same. We better learn how to play by the old rules again or it will be our country, family and friends that grovel for a seat at the table plenty.
Fight for your Country but do it wisely.
Rather than feeling sour about the advance of Chinese, why don't people just put their heads down and do better work?
There is no question we have to put our heads down and work harder. And yes America has had its share of lies, deceits and betrayals. But is that the America we live in now? This brings us back to the question “Are we a nation of laws”. The answer on the surface is without a doubt “yes”. Do we have room for improvement? Again,”yes”. Do our politicians and establishments lie and cheat the common citizen. Again, “yes”. But here I pause. At what level are we lied to and cheated? Is our freedom and security tarnished so badly in this country that the concept of personal and intellectual property has become a joke? The answer to that question is “no”. We do enjoy protections of both Physical and intellectual property.
While we struggle to maintain the securities and freedoms that have made this country strong we are left with a great dilemma. The world, most notably the Chinese are not playing by the rules. Wrong, right or the other we are forced to compete in a global Marketplace. My question is do we continue to play by rules that others (Chinese) do not? Can we compete if we continue to take the Moral high ground? Or are we forced to their level to compete and ultimately survive?
We must know our enemy (Economic enemy) if we hope to prosper in the coming generations.
Without the Rule of Law the pirates and governments of the world win. Who loses out?…The people! The Chinese appear to know this and not care.
They need to know we are watching and that we care.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4131724/
I'm not so sure how well our intelectual property is protected. Seems that he who has the most talented lawyers wins. Do you have any doubt that Microsoft has had all but a complete monopoly and yet was able to successfully fend off those charges?
"We better learn how to play by the old rules again or it will be our country, family and friends that grovel for a seat at the table plenty. "
Sure, let's exploit child labor, protect our oil abroad (China-Sudan, US-??), engender protectionism, pollute our environment... yes win today, and perhaps even tomorrow, but loose for humanity and the world of the future.
I hope they put Intel out of business, would serve them right for sending all their fab plants to China in the first place.
So they are infringing on Intel’s patents, what is Intel going to do about it? They are going to do the same all the other companies have done. Nothing.
How do you know they are infringing the patents? Don't you think Intel would have done something to protect their monopoly? Chip technology has been in the textbook for more than a decade, and everyone can make one. Don't you think technology is only in US. How about the Rockets and astronauts China sent to the space?
Give the chinese some time, they will find a way to close the gap between them an Intel. I still prefer Intel processors. It will be like AMD, their processors used to crash all the time, but after they fixed the problems their processors are reasonably OK, a 19.7% share in the CPU market is not bad. But truth be told, Intel processors are the best
Intel and the rest of the "American" chip manufacturers have been doing all of their manufacturing in Asia for years. That not only reduces labor cost but it spreads the technology and training to other countries at no cost to them.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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donaokka
3 Comments
The Chinese CPU
as you know how many microchip is from USA, you should know why Chinese mades this new microchip; maybe this is very importment for Chinese goverment and military
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shomas
246 Comments
Re: The Chinese CPU
Wont be long as more linux distributions are ported to the new mips based cpu. If distributed to classrooms in china, linux would be posed to become the worlds most used computer operating system. An explosion in development on linux will follow
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