China plans national, unified CPU architecture

[ChineseTiger1986]

According to reports from various industry sources, the Chinese government has begun the process of picking a national computer chip instruction set architecture (ISA). This ISA would have to be used for any projects backed with government money — which, in a communist country such as China, is a fairly long list of public and private enterprises and institutions, including China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the world. The primary reason for this move is to lessen China’s reliance on western intellectual property.

There are at least five existing ISAs on the table for consideration — MIPS, Alpha, ARM, Power, and the homegrown UPU [1] — but the Chinese leadership has also mooted the idea of defining an entirely new architecture. The first meeting to decide on a nationwide ISA, attended by government officials and representatives from academic groups and companies such as Huawei and ZTE, was held in March. According to MIPS vice president Robert Bismuth, a final decision [2] will be made in “a matter of months.”

China has a long history with MIPS and Alpha. Loongson processors, which power millions of Chinese school computers, use MIPS — and the ShenWei processors (pictured right) found in China’s first homegrown supercomputer, the Sunway Bluelight MPP [4], are based on the Alpha ISA. MIPS Technologies (the company) hasn’t been doing very well recently, and it’s rumored that the Sunnyvale-based company could be up for sale — a purchase I’m sure the Chinese government could afford.

According to EE Times, there are some 34 ARM licensees in China, but at $5 million for a single Cortex-A9 core license, it’s unlikely that ARM will be China’s choice. The Power ISA is cheaper, but lacks the software ecosystems that ARM and MIPS enjoy. ShenWei/Alpha is also a possibility, but again it cannot compete with MIPS’ installed base.

The other option, of course, is developing a brand new ISA — a daunting task, considering you have to create an entire software (compiler, developer, apps) and hardware (CPU, chipset, motherboard) ecosystem from scratch. But, there are benefits to building your own CPU architecture. China, for example, could design an ISA (or microarchicture) with silicon-level monitoring and censorship — and, of course, a ubiquitous, always-open backdoor that can be used by Chinese intelligence agencies. The Great Firewall of China is fairly easy to circumvent — but what if China built a DNS and IP address blacklist into the hardware itself?

Taking a leaf out of South Korea’s hardcore gaming scene, what if the Chinese government decided to implement a hardware-level 10pm curfew for video games? Or some code that automatically turns negative mentions of Hu Jintao (the Chinese president) into positives, and inserts a few honorifics at the same time. Or a latent botnet of hundreds of millions of computers that can be activated upon the commencement of World War III. Or, or, or…

Print Page - China plans national, unified CPU architecture | ExtremeTech

 

[qwerrty]

icube upu should be one of the ISA for selection

http://www.defence.pk/forums/chinese-defence/153357-icube-upu-next-step-processor-evolution.html

 

[gpit]

The author morbidly possesses a typical rancorous hatred against China: in his abysmally pitiful and hopelessly suicidal mind, China’s efforts in developing an indigenous standardized CPU and associated hardware/firmware/software mean only for censorship or turning negative comments on CPC and its leaders to positive.

Back to the topic. I believe if China to pursuit this route, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, useful patents and research papers can be generated. It will have profound positive impact on other areas of science and technology. China already has the capability to do it. The only question is how to pool the resources and coordinate the efforts. The very nature of the authoritarian system should allow it to accomplish it.

 

[pakje]

Doing censorship on hardware-level is just irrealistic, the author of this article has no clue what he's talking about

 

[DF-41 ICBM]

i just love it when the foreigners are feeling the heart burn at seeing china progress.

we are rattling their cage. they cannot stop our rise, all they are reduced to doing is making worthless insults at us.

ofcourse everyone will dismiss this, but self sufficiency is extremely important in everything, especially the semiconductor supply chain, just look at how the west is isolating iran. you never know what the west will try in the future on china as we start to erode the leverage of the west on the world stage.

i would rather be self sufficient with little lower quality than have the highest quality but completely dependent on the west.

we need to be more determined to be self sufficient in all areas.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

There is an official article in Xinhua, but unfortunately there is no English version.

That's why i can only post the one from this crappy author.

 

[UKBengali]

i just love it when the foreigners are feeling the heart burn at seeing china progress.

we are rattling their cage. they cannot stop our rise, all they are reduced to doing is making worthless insults at us.

ofcourse everyone will dismiss this, but self sufficiency is extremely important in everything, especially the semiconductor supply chain, just look at how the west is isolating iran. you never know what the west will try in the future on china as we start to erode the leverage of the west on the world stage.

i would rather be self sufficient with little lower quality than have the highest quality but completely dependent on the west.

we need to be more determined to be self sufficient in all areas.

West does not like China as it is the only country that can bring it's 500 year+ world dominance to an end.

 

[Bobshouse]

Doing censorship on hardware-level is just irrealistic, the author of this article has no clue what he's talking about

Really? According to my knowledge layer 1 filtering is the most effective way of controlling ones ability to access and process. It is the most effective because the only way to bypass it would be by altering the hardware itself.
I do agree with it not being effective though, whats to stop a Chinese person buy an Intel or AMD chip? China would basically need to ban the import of foreign CPU/APU's or force foreign companies to amend their hardware for Chinese markets.

Its an interesting development though, and if China ditches the x86 it will have a whole host of issues associated to it. Even if it does keep x86 and pushes ahead with hardware filtering, it will have another whole host of problems with being soo far behind the technology curve. And in the modern world you are only as good as what CPU you have or have access to.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Really? According to my knowledge layer 1 filtering is the most effective way of controlling ones ability to access and process. It is the most effective because the only way to bypass it would be by altering the hardware itself.
I do agree with it not being effective though, whats to stop a Chinese person buy an Intel or AMD chip? China would basically need to ban the import of foreign CPU/APU's or force foreign companies to amend their hardware for Chinese markets.

Its an interesting development though, and if China ditches the x86 it will have a whole host of issues associated to it. Even if it does keep x86 and pushes ahead with hardware filtering, it will have another whole host of problems with being soo far behind the technology curve. And in the modern world you are only as good as what CPU you have or have access to.

What a small thinker. What's the point in hardware censoring? The whole "censorship" thing is not about denying people's access to outside information. Otherwise CNN and BBC would be blocked, but they aren't. I'll let you think carefully about why blocking access to foreign sites that have the names, age, address, photographs and basic psychometric information about yourself, and hundreds of millions of other users, is useful. I'll also let you think carefully about why blocking access to sites that compete with domestic sites is useful.

If I could stop using Google, I would, but I can't, so I won't, since Google Scholar is unparalleled in convenience for scientific research, and its free. Every other scientific database requires payment or using the school computer. Hopefully, Baidu makes a "Baidu Scholar" but I'm not optimistic. Anything that requires user input and psychometric information though, I'm staying away from.

 

[peaceful]

Really? According to my knowledge layer 1 filtering is the most effective way of controlling ones ability to access and process. It is the most effective because the only way to bypass it would be by altering the hardware itself.
I do agree with it not being effective though, whats to stop a Chinese person buy an Intel or AMD chip? China would basically need to ban the import of foreign CPU/APU's or force foreign companies to amend their hardware for Chinese markets.

As I always say here on this forum, IQ is important. When you are not smart, my suggestion is simple: talk less and read more.

The current censorship approach used by the CCP works pretty well -- "unwanted" information get filtered and the vast majority are blocked out from it. There is no question about this.

Now, let's don't worry about the effectiveness of "hardware based censorship" for just 1 second for the purpose of discussion -- we all know it would be a completely different approach, an entirely new system need to be designed/built/tested/deployed and how practical it would be is still "on paper" only.

You tell me how many decision makers would abandon a perfectly fine system that meets the current goals so well and have been verified in real life for over a decade? what they can get? more censorship more control? No, that is not true, BBC/CNN is no longer blocked, more information is being made available to the general public.

You know what? Australia's future is pretty clear: mining, high tech stuff like CPU is too advanced for assuie, how about just shut up, dig more rocks, and leave CPU kind of topics to others?

 

[Bobshouse]

As I always say here on this forum, IQ is important. When you are not smart, my suggestion is simple: talk less and read more.

The current censorship approach used by the CCP works pretty well -- "unwanted" information get filtered and the vast majority are blocked out from it. There is no question about this.

Now, let's don't worry about the effectiveness of "hardware based censorship" for just 1 second for the purpose of discussion -- we all know it would be a completely different approach, an entirely new system need to be designed/built/tested/deployed and how practical it would be is still "on paper" only.

You tell me how many decision makers would abandon a perfectly fine system that meets the current goals so well and have been verified in real life for over a decade? what they can get? more censorship more control? No, that is not true, BBC/CNN is no longer blocked, more information is being made available to the general public.

You know what? Australia's future is pretty clear: mining, high tech stuff like CPU is too advanced for assuie, how about just shut up, dig more rocks, and leave CPU kind of topics to others?

LOL anytime you want to match wits regarding IT then im up for it.

So tell me Mr Big Brain, why do you think China would want to move from x86?

 

[ao333]

As I always say here on this forum, IQ is important. When you are not smart, my suggestion is simple: talk less and read more.

The current censorship approach used by the CCP works pretty well -- "unwanted" information get filtered and the vast majority are blocked out from it. There is no question about this.

Now, let's don't worry about the effectiveness of "hardware based censorship" for just 1 second for the purpose of discussion -- we all know it would be a completely different approach, an entirely new system need to be designed/built/tested/deployed and how practical it would be is still "on paper" only.

You tell me how many decision makers would abandon a perfectly fine system that meets the current goals so well and have been verified in real life for over a decade? what they can get? more censorship more control? No, that is not true, BBC/CNN is no longer blocked, more information is being made available to the general public.

You know what? Australia's future is pretty clear: mining, high tech stuff like CPU is too advanced for assuie, how about just shut up, dig more rocks, and leave CPU kind of topics to others?

Chinese, don't defend censorship. It makes you look dumb. It's smarter just to avoid the topic, since even the youths doing the censoring know it's wrong.

And don't diss Australia. If you want to, diss Indians living in Australia. The Aussies are by far the wealthiest in the world, ahead of both Canada and the United States. They are near northern Europe level.

You don't get rich from mining. Russia and Mongolia have loads more resources than Australia can ever dream of, and they still fail.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Chinese, don't defend censorship. It makes you look dumb. It's smarter just to avoid the topic, since even the youths doing the censoring know it's wrong.

And don't diss Australia. If you want to, diss Indians living in Australia. The Aussies are by far the wealthiest in the world, ahead of both Canada and the United States. They are near northern Europe level.

You don't get rich from mining. Russia and Mongolia have loads more resources than Australia can ever dream of, and they still fail.

Mongolia can't ship them out and Russia has less resources PER CAPITA.

Russia pumps more oil than Saudi Arabia yet is poorer due to 6x larger population.

 

[peaceful]

LOL anytime you want to match wits regarding IT then im up for it.

So tell me Mr Big Brain, why do you think China would want to move from x86?

do you have a PhD degree from a top uni major in computer science? how many US patents you have? how many tier 1 publications you have? ever worked in a R&D department in companies like apple, ms, google? no? then tell me why should I assume you are operating in the same leve?

IT? what do you mean by IT? java coding or cisco router configuration? or maybe linux kernel hacking?

now Mr. Big Brain whose IQ is 146 is going to tell you why Chinese want to "move from x86": because the x86 business is surrounded by numerous patents, you can't get into the game if you don't have enough patents in the relevant field to help you end up with a cross licensing agreement. plus, the timing is right, the rise of ARM and Android shows some potential in this area.

China is not australia, people don't just dig up rocks and export them, and CCP is not your labor loser who only talk but never work. I can confirm to you that there are PPC/MIPS/X86/ARM clones being built by over a dozen companies. It is never about "move from x86", it is about the fact that if Chinese can master this tech, they will not pay you to use the tech.

 

[peaceful]

And don't diss Australia. If you want to, diss Indians living in Australia. The Aussies are by far the wealthiest in the world, ahead of both Canada and the United States. They are near northern Europe level.

You don't get rich from mining. Russia and Mongolia have loads more resources than Australia can ever dream of, and they still fail.

I have been living HERE for 10 years, I totally understand the LOCAL economy. Before you start lecturing me the LOCAL economy, let me tell you one thing: you get rich from mining, the ongoing boom here is called China boom completely caused by exporting rocks to China. This suggested by Australia's PM, the Australian Treasury, the biggest mining company BHP and numerous other companies.

of course, comments from ao333 overwrites all these, as he is the overlord of assuie economy!