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China Forges Ahead With 'Dragon' CPU
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Dec 23, 2002 07:59 PM
from the not-mythical dept.
from the not-mythical dept.
Dynamic Drive writes "There's an interesting article on Cnet regarding China's eager attempts to lessen her dependence on foreign technology when it comes to CPUs. The latest endeavor is a homegrown chip named 'Dragon', which apparently is roughly equivalent in speeds to those of Intel chips made between 1995-1997, or 200-260MHz. While I think such an audacious effort is most certainly commendable, I can't help but wonder what the potential things that could go wrong with designing a CPU are, such as software incompatibilities etc." This is the same processor mentioned in September, only now more than 10,000 of the chips have been made.
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China Forges Ahead With 'Dragon' CPU
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Because.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Today 233 mHz. Tomorrow...well, 500 mHz or so. But chips are a strategic commodity, and they know they'll be toe-to-toe with the West as they emerge as a bona fide superpower rival. No need rely on the largesse of the US or Japan for microprocessors.
I wonder what they could build a bare-bones PC for, if CPUs were 25-cents or so?
Re:Stunned about this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, once an architecture has been out for a while, there is a lot of information available which can be used to redesign it. Lastly, while 260 MHz was pushing the technology in 1997, it isn't that big a deal in 2002. Does anyone know what feature size the chip is fabbed in?
"Dragon" - named after the speed. (Score:5, Funny)
It's Dragon.
266mhz, gotta start somewhere. (Score:3, Insightful)
Please no jokes about "640k being enough for anyone". im serious.. most of the time we waste tons of cycles, beacuse we can. one doesnt *need* a ghz chip to get work done..
And if its truely homegrown, and not cloned, then they deserve a LOT of credit for getting this far this fast.
Just imagine. (Score:4, Funny)
Ok, ok, it's just a lame joke about a lame processor. Move along.
Feng Shui (Score:5, Funny)
in Soviet Russia (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately they never succeeded in making a Soviet verion of the 80386 processor. Now I've heard to stories which claim the reason of the failure. The first one says that in order to reproduce 80286 they just took really thin slices of the Intel's processors and reversed engineered them this way. In order to prevent this, Intel started to print layers of 80386 processor in waves, not on straight planes and it was much harder to slice that without ruining the processor.
The second version says that poplar seeds were to blame: there is a lot of poplars in Kiev (that part is a fact) and when the time for poplar seeds comes, the air in the city is filled with it. They couldn't get it out of their manufacturing areas and had to shut it down.
Obligatory chinese food joke adaptation (Score:3, Informative)
China needs this to survive (Score:4, Insightful)
No sovereign nation can take such a risk.
Military Uses (Score:5, Insightful)
No I don't mean hacking, I mean weapon guidance.
The first SAM interception of an enemy warplane from a USN ship was done with a 64K 1 MhZ fire control director. Ever since, more powerful computer power drives all of our 'smart' weapons. China knows this and is probably not interested in having a CPU ban cripple their firepower.
Building a native capability means that China can make militarized versions without worrying about whether we 'messed up' a production run or can exploit a flaw we built in.
why hate on the clock-speed? (Score:3, Informative)
For a bit more info, I have a p3-1.3ghz, a dual p2 466, amongst a few others...why then do I use this machine? it's my preference, and I can.
I do everything I need to do in the day on this little 175mhz machine. Why? Because I can. It's non-x86, which for me is a HUGE benefit (such a horrid little architecture...), and is fast enough to run mozilla, X, and whatever apps I need (including Maya for 3d stuff)....
Before you go saying ya it's an SGI, it's not a PC, NEITHER IS THE DRAGON! It's not a standard mobo w/ 200mhz pentium in there, it's a different cpu, different architecture internally, and may be a lot faster than many of you are assuming...
SVCD faq (Score:3, Informative)
From the SVCD faq [uwasa.fi]
was decided that DVD - while undoubtedly a good technical specification as
such - is all too tightly controlled by DVD Consortium, a closed body of
foreign companies. The Chinese government did not quite like the idea that the
domestic home electronics industry would have to pay royalties to foreign
companies in order to manufacture next generation video disc products for
Chinese people. It was calculated that creating a royalty-free, full-fledged
video disc format on their own would be a major long-term win for the domestic
industry. Moreover, this was also considered an issue of national pride; an
opportunity to flex some technical muscle, and to send a clear signal to the
outside world that China has enough critical mass to be able to ignore foreign
entertainment standards it does not want to conform to. (Chinese politicians
and researchers are now keen to celebrate SVCD as the first international
high-tech standard that has been developed in China.) Finally, it was also
thought that a Chinese video disc standard would help in pressuring the DVD
Consortium to keep the licensing fees down, at least for the Chinese market.
I used CPUInfo on one of those recently... (Score:5, Funny)
Name! (Score:3, Funny)
In Communist China . . . (Score:3, Funny)
Some clarifications... (Score:5, Informative)
1. Although the chip's Chinese name can be translated directly to "Dragon chip", it has an English name "Godson-I"
2. The chip is manufactured in
3. The chip is targetted at the embedded market, it's not going to compete with the current GHz chips like Pentium 4 or Athlon XP. It's not guaranteed for the future Godson generations tho...
4. Therefore, the chip has an extremely low power consumption, ranging from 0.4W to 1W. (Compare: AXP and P4s -- 50W - 80W). Yes - you can theoretically run 100 or more Godsons simutaneously and they're just consuming the same power as ONE 3GHz P4.
5. It's an MIPS chip, not X86.
If you're able to read Chinese, check out the following URL, it gives you a much clearer idea about the chip
http://www.blxcpu.com/
and,
Merry X'mas
VIA should sell China their processor! (Score:4, Funny)
Incompatible is a feature! (Score:3, Interesting)
In the free market that would be a valid concern. China is not a free market.
If you have a processor that is incompatible with everyone else you do have to develop your own software to go with it. True. But you also prevent the dependence upon western software. In a place like China they can force that issue.
That helps them keep the west out. In a communist society (yes folks they are communist and yes, that does run counter to the way we live) they view that as a good thing.
When these processors are used in thier defensive and offensive military systems, and THEY WILL BE USED THAT WAY, it will be that much harder for us to counter them. There will be a new niche in the west for geeks who understand the Dragon so that we understand their exact capabilities and combat them.
So software incompatibilities could work for them rather than against.