Recently, according to the results of the "Chinese Academy of Sciences Science and Technology Innovation Highlights Screening" activity page, Loongson Zhongke Technology Co., Ltd. has completed the development of the Loongson 3C5000 server CPU based on the independent LoongArch instruction system, and the domestic server CPU has taken another step forward. .

For the naming of CPUs, the A series are generally desktop CPUs, while the C series are server CPUs. From the public information, the Loongson 3C5000 Wu Fuqi CPU integrates 16 high-performance Loongson LA464 processors, 32MB shared upper cache and 4 64-bit DDR4-3200 memory controllers, with a main frequency of 2.1-2.3GHz , the single-new double-precision floating-point operation speed exceeds 0.5TFLOPS.

In terms of performance alone, the Loongson 3C5000 is already comparable to the mainstream CPUs in the market, and can already meet the performance requirements of current cloud computing and data centers.

It is worth mentioning that LoongArch, also known as the Loongson autonomous instruction system architecture, has achieved the characteristics of complete autonomy, advanced technology, and compatibility with ecology. It has nearly 2,000 instructions and does not include the MIPS instruction system. The architecture was officially released by Godson this year.

In July this year, Loongson Zhongke released the 3A5000 CPU. As a desktop CPU, its performance has approached the mainstream products in the market. According to the evaluation data of relevant institutions, the Loongson 3A5000 single-core SPECCPU 2006 Base fixed and floating point score is at 2.5GHz frequency. The lower performance exceeds 26 points, and the average performance per GHz exceeds 10 points, which is quite close to the mainstream X86 products in the market.

Among them, in addition to the self-developed CPU core of the Loongson processor, hundreds of IPs including GPU core, memory controller and PHY, high-speed IO interface controller and PHY are independently developed.

In addition to Godson, the domestic new CPU force also includes Zhaoxin and Feiteng. For example, Zhaoxin released a ZX-C4600/4610 processor in 2015, which is a domestic general-purpose X86 CPU with a lower price threshold. It is clocked at 2GHz and uses a 28nm manufacturing process.

According to the test, the performance of this Zhaoxin chip is basically twice that of the Pentium dual-core E2160 released by Intel in 2007, which can already meet the daily office needs.

Feiteng has also released processor products, such as the classic FT-1500A/4 quad-core processor, but due to the use of Arm V8 architecture, it is not compatible with Windows, and can basically only run localized Linux systems, which is only a short distance from ordinary consumers. farther.

Now Feiteng has also released the 16-core processor of FT-1500A/16 and the server platform of 64-core version of FT-2000+/64.

In addition to the above models, domestic CPUs also include brands such as Kunpeng, Haiguang, and Shenwei. For example, Shenwei's CPUs have been adopted by the world's largest supercomputer, Sunway TaihuLight.

The dilemma and status quo of domestic CPU

I have already learned about some domestic CPU-related products in China, but it is certain that if you are not in the industry, you may have basically never heard of these domestic CPUs. On the one hand, the market share of domestic CPUs is too small, and the popularity is limited to relevant professionals. Another reason is that the promotion of domestic CPUs is more difficult due to price.

First of all, about the price, most users may think that since there is still a gap between the performance of domestic CPUs compared with Intel and AMD, and may even be inferior to the previous generation of Pentium and Celeron, the price must be cheaper than these products.

But in fact, it is precisely because the domestic processor audience is small, most users do not pay, the sales volume is low, and the research and development cost is here, the cost of each CPU is not low. Assuming that it costs 100 million yuan to develop a new series (the cost is already very low), but only less than 100,000 sets are sold in the end (100,000 sets are basically the ceiling of domestic CPU sales), then the cost of each set reaches 1,000 Yuan, this does not include channel fees and additional expenses such as storage and transportation.

Compared with Intel and AMD's sales of millions of dollars, it is difficult to reduce the cost of domestic CPUs, which leads to today's domestic CPU prices even higher than these foreign CPU products.

When the cost cannot be reduced and the performance is not as good as that of similar foreign products, ordinary consumers will basically not support it and can only rely on government procurement. If you want ordinary consumers to pay, now you can only take the route of subsidies to bring down the price.

Besides cost, another issue is ecology. Zhaoxin CPU adopts X86 architecture, which is compatible with Windows, and its ecological environment is slightly better. However, for Loongson and Feiteng, they are not compatible with Windows because they use the self-developed architecture LoongArch and Arm architecture respectively.

This is not very friendly to users. Without a corresponding software ecological environment, it means that there is no room for domestic CPUs to display their capabilities. If you want a software ecosystem, you can only give up self-research, purchase a general architecture, and manufacture server CPUs to help companies quickly recover their costs. However, in this way, it is difficult for companies to fight back once they are "stuck in the neck" by foreign companies.

How long will it take for domestic CPUs to replace Intel?

Nowadays, there is a wave of domestic substitution in China, and as the core of computing and control of computer systems, how to realize the independent control of CPU, and how to achieve substitution can withstand the test of the market is the key to the rise of domestic production.

At present, there are many domestic CPU products, so how far is it from replacing Intel?

In terms of performance alone, the performance of the Loongson 3A5000 is comparable to that of the Intel i5 in 2015, which is already very good. You must know that in the past, the performance gap between domestic and foreign CPUs can reach more than 10 years. Therefore, if you only look at performance, you can replace Intel in about 5-8 years.

But in addition to performance, CPU is also very important for ecology. For a simple example, in overseas countries, most Android phones use the GMS framework. Only with GMS can Google applications and applications that require GMS support run. Most overseas Android applications require GMS support to be able to use them. When a mobile phone is banned from using GMS, in the overseas market, it means that there is basically nothing else to do except make calls. This is ecology.

Due to the strong market position of Intel CPUs, Windows is basically developed based on X86. For other CPUs, compatibility problems will arise.

The market share of other CPUs is scarce, and it is difficult to attract developers who are willing to develop corresponding software for this architecture, and finally fall into a vicious circle.

Fortunately, some CPUs are starting to break this ecosystem. For example, Loongson has also started to go in compatibility mode, and can run some Windows programs. In the future, as more and more programs can be run, I believe it will gradually occupy a place in the market. Drive the iteration and development of domestic CPU technology through the market.

Then the answer is obvious. If you only look at performance, it may take 5-8 years to completely replace Intel. If there are not so geeks, today's domestic CPUs are already available for daily use. However, the ecological defects make the domestic CPU more embarrassing. Although it is called to build a third ecosystem, it is obviously a long process. Before that, compatibility with the other two ecosystems will be the only way for domestic CPUs.