China Develops Their Own CPU: The "Dragon Chip"

vaxzilla writes "China's People's Daily Online is reporting in this article that the Computer Institution of the Chinese Academy of Science have developed a new CPU, which they're calling the Dragon Chip. The report isn't clear on the technical details of the chip, though it does state, somewhat confusingly, that it, `is based on the RISC structure, a totally another standard. Therefore, it will not fall into the intellectual property right trap.' They're running Linux on the chip and have built a server around it, Soaring Dragon. It looks like China is starting to tell both Microsoft and Intel to take a hike. Interesting times are ahead."

i wonder why

[jon787]

maybe because they don't like palladium either?

Re:Very cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'd get one too because of the total lack of information about the processor in the article and the fact that there are no other systems with RISC chips.

Re:i wonder why

[Anonymous Coward]

No; but they do like vicious censorship of dissenting political opinions. If this appears in People's Daily, it is basically straight from the government's mouth, and is most likely meant as an anti-American sleight-of-hand. Remember, these folks are the same ones who thought The Onion [theonion.com] really was America's Finest New Source [slashdot.org].

dual chip boards

[spineboy]

Will they be called Double Dragons?

Soaring Dragon...

[Paersona]

...or their internal codename, Soaring Middle Finger to the West.

dude, where's my cpu?

[StandardDeviant]

The new chip is rumored to use the rarely seen iterative data fetch instruction (ANDTHN) to retrieve data from ram (really annoyed memory). In keeping with the RISC philosophy, this is the only instruction the cpu supports when interacting with other entities in the system.


(if you haven't seen "dude, where's my car" this will make no sense. so go watch the movie ;))

Best quote ever:

[Timmeh]

The person also made a further explanation, saying that China used the US chip in the past. Information security constitutes the first and foremost line in national defence. However, the line was built on the foreign technology and completed with materials from a foreign country, and so we cannot but be worried about it.

You can't tell me that I was the only person who did a double-take when I read that. That must be why the P4 requires so much power, IT'S GOT A SECRET GOVERNMENT TRANSMITTER INSIDE OF IT. Good thing I wrap my case in the same thick tin foil I used for my hats. And to think that my neighbors call me crazy! At least my data isn't being uploaded to a secret government satellite!

from the article

[zephc]

"the Dragon Chip is proved to be very sound in performance, steady and reliable in operation and utterly sufficient to meet the working requirement of the server and website"

'utterly sufficient'? is that like 'majestically plain'?

Re:Yay China!

[k_stamour]

"your CPU cycles are belonging to us!!!"....

Wonder what they think is going on @ People's Daily Online as they get ./'ed ................

Re:Best quote ever:

[Shuh]

That must be why the P4 requires so much power, IT'S GOT A SECRET GOVERNMENT TRANSMITTER INSIDE OF IT.

You don't think they're doing 2.8 Ghz of work in a P4, do you? Dude, that's the frequency of the transmitter's carrier wave!!!

Re:i wonder why

[MikeFM]

Seriously I would buy a processor from them if they didn't include that DRM bullshit while AMD, Intel, and other American companies are including it. Even if they aren't quite as fast for the buck or aren't x86 compatible (is fine as long as they can run Linux). I'd even switch to their CPU as my default development platform.

Wouldn't it be ironic for Americans to have to use Chinese products to remain free?

Re:Best quote ever:

[Nihilanth]

that would explain the clock/performance disparity

Re:History of Eastern Dragons

[Afrosheen]

China gets the big beautiful dragons and here in the US all we get are the damn Underpants Gnomes.

I think China got the long end of the stick on this one.

Re:dual chip boards

[Anonymous Coward]

Will the entry point of the programs be EnterTheDragon()?

Re:dual chip boards

[cybercuzco]

and of course a 4-way board would be Double Dragon II

CPU stats

[carpe_noctem]

Some of the unique things that this CPU will feature are:
* Automatically reallocates all system devices to have equal priority, bringing your system to a slow crawl.
* Chip will spend all of its spare cycles figuring out how to stop you from using productive applications and networking with other computers.
* Keystroke logging functionality integrated with automatic emailing capabilities to the state police.
* If running linux with sendmail, makes sure that the service runs as an open-relay for spammers

It's a 1000 MIPS Chip but....

[TechnoGrl]

....the problem is that an hour later your application still wants more.

Re:A serious curiousity question

[Maserati]

Chopstick

Dragon = flames, right?

[xactoguy]

So... if these chips suddenly go up brearthing fire and smoke, we'll have the perfect reason why, right?

Impressive

[ionpro]

A reference to an Old English work about a Sweedish hero fighting in Denmark on an American website's story about a Chinese processor.

You've geat mojo.

There is precedent

[vik]

Buying Chinese chips to remain free is not that stranger than having to buy tickets into space on Russian rockets.

Vik :v)

By the year 2020

[Dexter77]

...there might be 1,5 billion Linux users in china running red flag linux on dragon chips.

OK, realistic figure would more like 2/3 of the whole population, just one billion users.

RMS is not a communist...

[tlambert]

RMS is not a Communist; if he were, he would have written a "Manifesto", like Karl Marx did.

He's also not a luddite; if he were, he would have written a "Manifesto", like Theodore "Ted, The Unibomber" Kazinsky did.

Uh... Oh... Er... Wait...

-- Terry

Chinese PDA CPUs

[kitzilla]

I understand the same Chinese company is developing a mobile-sized chip for PDAs and imbedded apps called the Shrimp Chip.