As we all know, the industrial computer is the core area of my country's information industry development, and the CPU (central processing unit) is the core of the integrated circuit. At present, there are urgent situational requirements for information security. If there is no localization and autonomy of CPU, security will be impossible. In the past year or so, the development of domestic CPUs has been chaotic. How is the development of domestic CPUs? This article will unveil the veil of domestic CPUs and explore the road to independent control of domestic CPUs.
Domestic products should be self-improvement, the development road of domestic CPU
When it comes to domestic CPUs, everyone will naturally think of "Godson". "Godson" is a general-purpose CPU independently developed by the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is a high-performance general-purpose CPU in my country. At present, Loongson has developed into the third-generation product "Godson No. 3". It adopts the MIPS64-bit instruction set and has eight processor cores. The main frequency is 1.2GHz, and the Loongson series CPU has core independent intellectual property rights in the processor design.
In addition to "Godson", the domestic "Feiteng" and "Shenwei" series processors are also representatives of domestic CPUs. Among them, "Feiteng" is the Galaxy Feiteng series of high-performance general-purpose CPUs developed by the School of Computer Science, National University of Defense Technology, and the "Shenwei" processor It is independently developed by the High Performance Integrated Circuit (Shanghai) Design Center, and is specifically developed and implemented by the Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology. The above processors have all appeared in domestic high-performance supercomputers, and have received special funding support from the "Nuclear High Base" project, a major science and technology project.
But the expectations of the public for domestic CPU applications are far more than a few "supercomputers". At present, it seems that domestic CPUs have only been applied in some "specific" fields, while the mainstream products such as various servers, desktops, notebooks, switches and other large-scale products in the market are rarely seen. The domestic CPU has a truly mature commercial application in the above-mentioned fields. And the current domestic security situation and localization process obviously have a more urgent and substantial demand for the localization market substitution of the above-mentioned products.
In terms of industrialization, "Godson" is the representative of the above-mentioned CPU. In 2010, Godson Zhongke Technology Co., Ltd. was officially responsible for the industrialization of Godson CPU. President Hu Weiwu, its responsible person, once said that after three years of industrialization transformation, Godson found that, The backward software and hardware ecosystem has become the main bottleneck restricting its development. In terms of product types, Godson's industrialization has indeed developed rapidly in the past three years. In 2010, Loongson had only 2 products that could be sold. In 2011, there were 4 products. By 2012, the number had reached more than 10 products. At present, Loongson has made achievements in the security field and embedded market, but Hu Weiwu once pointed out in a public report that the lag of the software and hardware ecosystem has begun to restrict the development of Loongson. "Although Godson has done a lot to improve the software and hardware ecology, it is far from enough, and it has become the primary bottleneck restricting the development of Godson."
The domestic market ushered in substantial positives, and CPU giants swarmed
In the past two years, the intensification of various information security incidents has made people realize that it is necessary to accelerate the pace of localization, especially the localization of core components. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology pointed out in the "2015 Implementation Plan for the Special Action for Strengthening the Industrial Base" that through about 10 years Strive to achieve 70% of the core basic components (components) and key basic materials independent guarantee, some of which reach the international leading level.
At the same time, domestic CPUs also seem to have a good opportunity for development. Various international CPU giants have also begun to express an unprecedented open attitude towards China and are willing to cooperate with domestic capital to establish domestic CPU companies and seek common development of the integrated circuit industry. .
In April 2013, Shanghai Zhaoxin Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd. was established. Shanghai Zhaoxin was jointly established by Shanghai Lianhe Investment Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and VIA Co., Ltd., with a registered capital of 250 million US dollars. It developed X86 with independent intellectual property rights in China The core processor chip is structured, and it is called to promote the overall development of China's information industry.
In October 2014, Jiangsu Provincial Economic and Information Commission and IBM signed a memorandum of cooperation to jointly promote the construction of China's OpenPOWER chip ecosystem and industrial chain. Suzhou Zhongsheng Hongxin Information Technology Co., Ltd. and IBM signed an agreement on chip intellectual property licensing. Further cooperation agreement, Suzhou Zhongsheng Hongxin plans to develop and promote POWER server processor products in the Chinese market by obtaining the license of IBM POWER architecture, POWER8 related intellectual property and chip design tools.
Also in October 2014, the signing ceremony of the "Feiteng CPU" project of China Zhenhua Electronics Group Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China Electronics Information Industry Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Electronics"), was grandly held in Tianjin Binhai New Area, marking the official development of China Electronics. Entered the field of high-end chips for information security. On March 26, 2015, China Electronics held the "CPU and Network Switching Chip New Product Release and Achievement Promotion Conference" in Beijing. "Replacement of server chips,
The situation of industrial personal computers suddenly changed, and major international CPU manufacturers have found partners in China, and they have shown unprecedented openness. Are they sincerely cooperating or seeking "endorsement"? No matter what the consideration is, international CPU manufacturers are obviously I have felt the localization strength of the Chinese market, and hope to share the dividends of the localization market with China.
But it turns out that the localization of CPU chips still has a long way to go. Shanghai Zhaoxin Company, which has maintained a mysterious background since its establishment, has launched its domestic Zhaoxin processor using the X86 architecture in 2014, but from the actual samples obtained by users, the chip package is still impressively printed with VIA "" "Nano" trademark, and it is said that this domestic Zhaoxin chip is no different from the "Nano" chip launched by VIA in 2008, and the intellectual property rights are still in the hands of the other company. Regarding the cooperation of IBM Power processors in China, according to relevant experts who participated in the project, although IBM has shown sufficient sincerity in the licensing of processors of the open POWER architecture, due to the complexity of IBM's POWER processor design process and technology, It is a huge system implementation project. It cannot be solved simply by paying IBM a lot of licensing fees. How to let domestic companies fully undertake the unconstrained development of POWER processor design in the future, and how to realize the industrial Profitability is still an unresolved issue.
