A Chinese Challenge To Intel 364
motang writes "Chinese government funded Godson-3 a CPU that is developed to bring personal computing to majority of Chinese people by the year 2010. Will this pose any threat to Intel?"
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A Chinese Challenge To Intel
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The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.
Easy Answer: (Score:2, Informative)
No.
Looks cheap. (Score:3, Informative)
The funny thing is that they're made in China by a Swiss company, then rebranded Chinese. Ya'd think that they'd want to do it the other way around. Must be a national pride thing -- China's motto is "Ours is crappier than yours, but we have so much damn more of it!"
Re:Why x86-compatible? (Score:3, Informative)
Even in real (before Gorbachov) communist era, USSR was shipping 8086 compatible chips as far as I searched.
Guess what? They care about Windows, DirectX and millions of x86 centric developers. China has always been a realistic country and even Russia couldn't dare to ship a non x86 small chip. Their mainframes were also DEC/S360 etc. clones. There is even a DEC chip saying "Steal from the best" when looked under electron microscope ;)
Re:Will it be a threat to Intel? (Score:3, Informative)
on x86 compatibility from TFA:
on watt usage from TFA:
so, yes, it will be x86 compatible.
Re:Will it be a threat to Intel? (Score:3, Informative)
Quoting Apple community who got sick of FreeScale's (G4 era) non shipping announcements and watt/mhz claims say: "Lets see the actual silicon chip and measure it".
When its shipped, Freescale will be at very interesting watt powers (as they are concentrated) and Intel will be at SSE something level. Intel and AMD has a sharing agreement and MS is very close friend of Intel that has lead to "Wintel" term. Emulating the CPU? Ask Linus how well it went.
I have seen some great promises not happening at all or wasn't delivering the promise. Especially x86 market. Today's fashion is Watts and number of cores, it was Mhz way back then.
Take a look at a 9 years old story:
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/02/19/1543222.shtml [slashdot.org]
I'm not worried. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:China's "sayonara" MS, Intel (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why x86-compatible? (Score:3, Informative)
It's not x86 compatible. It's a MIPS64 clone. According to this, they'll use binary translation and extra instructions to run x86 binaries.
http://www.pldesignline.com/news/210201111 [pldesignline.com]
Both the four- and eight-core versions of the Godson-3 are implemented at 65 nm, with clock speed of 1GHz. The design features a distributed, scalable architecture with reconfigurable CPU core and L2 cache. The devices are designed for low power consumption - the four-core draws 10w while the eight -core draws 20w, according to Xu's presentation. The designs utilize MIPS64 cores with more than 200 additional instructions for X86 binary translation and media acceleration.
Problem is it's unlicensed, so they would most likely be sued for patent infringement if they sell it outside China.
http://www.mdronline.com/watch/watch_Issue.asp?Volname=Issue+%23072505&on=1 [mdronline.com]
In December 2003, Advanced Micro Devices and BLX IC Design announced a relationship and opened the AMD/BLX Computing Client Development Center in Beijing. BLX IC Design is creating reference designs for thin clients and other computing products using AMD and BLX IC Design processors. The first two products are thin clients powered by AMDâ(TM)s MIPS32 - compatible Alchemy Au1500 processor and BLX IC Design's Godson-1. The creators of the Godson-1 say its architecture is "MIPS-like" - a description that annoys MIPS Technologies, which doesnâ(TM)t authorize the Godson architecture or license any intellectual property to ICT or BLX IC Design. AMD, which is a MIPS licensee, says it encourages BLX IC Design and MIPS to resolve their licensing issues.
Lexra tried to sell unlicensed MIPS clones and was effectively shutdown by lawsuits. As this Lexra guy puts it -
http://jonahprobell.com/lexra.html [jonahprobell.com]
It has been interesting to watch as the Chinese company, BLX, has made and sold powerful processors in China that execute MIPS-based instruction sets. BLX is legally and morally clear of violating MIPS Technologies' patents. BLX has chosen not to pay anything to MIPS Technologies while a host of American companies with their own powerful MIPS instruction set processors pay large sums of money to MIPS Technologies for the privilege of not being hassled by lawsuits. After its experience with Lexra MIPS Technologies changed all of its 32-bit cores to ue its new MIPS32 instruction set which extends the MIPS-I instruction set to include other features patented by MIPS Technologies. This is similar to Intel's addition of the MMX instruction set extensions to Pentium III in order to prevent AMD from building compatible processors.
Re:Bad for Environment--Bad for Intel--Bad for Use (Score:5, Informative)
And it is being produced.
It also makes the VIA processors look like incredible speed demons.
So the problem isn't being able to make them, but being able to make them
Re:US Export Laws Helps This Project (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bad for Environment--Bad for Intel--Bad for Use (Score:5, Informative)
This is the third major redesign of the Dragon chip. If you had read the article (haha, slashdot joke etc) you would have seen that apparently with each update they've tripled the performance, or so they say. There's been about 8 updates for the second major design of the chip, they're on 2G or 2H now, with integrated GPUs, and even integrated chipsets (System on Chip).
Godson-3 / Dragon-3 chip will have 4 cores at 5W/core (allegedly) and interface using HyperTransport to a chipset (so they can probably use any compatible chipset from the PC world).
Re:Why x86-compatible? (Score:2, Informative)
Actually this seems to confirm it
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=01923563-17A4-0F78-313A27C7A88124BA [news.idg.no]
Godson's use in PCs has been held back by the fact that it is based on a MIPS core, as opposed to the x86 design used by Intel and AMD. To run Windows it has to use translation software to achieve x86-compatibility, and the Godson loses a lot of its native MIPS power in the process.
The Godson 3 adds new instructions that speed the x86-to-MIPS translation by a factor of 10, Xu said. "Our goal is to eventually reach 80 percent of the native MIPS performance," he said. "Right now we are at 40 percent, so we have a long way to go."
So it's not going to be quick, a 1Ghz Godson running x86 code through software translation will currently perform like a say P3 at 400-800Mhz.
Re:Bad for Environment--Bad for Intel--Great for U (Score:4, Informative)
I thought that was Iran that allowed Euros to buy oil. Also that was after Iraq was invaded.
Re:Bad for Environment--Bad for Intel--Great for U (Score:3, Informative)
Intel chips are I believe made in America, Ireland and Israel. AMD's I believe are mostly made in Germany.
For other sorts of chips, try Taiwan and South Korea. Both of those countries have economies that are very close to Western standards.
Re:Bad for Environment--Bad for Intel--Great for U (Score:5, Informative)
>Iraq started breaking stride with the other oil producing nations and allowing Euros to be traded instead of US Dollars. Then they got invaded, and that put a stop to that.
That sounds bad for Iran since they did that too some months ago.
http://www.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUSBLA02024820080430 [reuters.com]
Iran conducts all crude trade in euro, yen
Re:US Export Laws Helps This Project (Score:3, Informative)
Do those laws apply if say the microprocessors are fabbed in Germany/Israel/Ireland, assembled/packaged in Malaysia, and then exported to China?
How about if the microprocessors are assembled/packaged in China itself?
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/manufacturing/manufacturing_qa.htm [intel.com]
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51__104_543~117787,00.html [amd.com]
Re:The death of x86 (Score:3, Informative)
ARM is denser than x86, especially if you use Thumb. Anyway, nothing mainstream has a high-performance FPU these days, apart from x86.
Re:Bad for Environment--Bad for Intel--Bad for Use (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. They're being included in low-end computers, set-top boxes, and supercomputers, all over China. Such as the Tianhua GX-1C.
The Dragon chips (and variations of) are also gaining some traction in Europe and the US, being used in a couple dirt-cheap $250 EEE PC clones. eg.: http://www.compsource.com/pn/3KRZ40074GB/3k_Computers_2340/ [compsource.com]
http://www.gdium.com/description/ [gdium.com]
They've made millions of them.