1. Comparative analysis of domestic CPU development direction
At present, my country's independent research and development of server chips mainly has the following five directions: Alpha architecture, ARM architecture, MIPS architecture, X86 architecture, and Power architecture. MIPS-based Loongson, X86-based Zhaoxin, ARM-based Phytium, Huawei Kunpeng 920, and Alpha-based Chengdu Shenwei have emerged.
Alpha architecture. At present, Chengdu Shenwei is the domestic research and development processor chip of this type of architecture. The company develops server chips based on this architecture and has the autonomy to independently expand instructions and develop routes.
ARM architecture, currently domestic server chip companies include Phytium and Huawei HiSilicon chips. These two manufacturers have unlimited permanent authorization of the v8 architecture, and can develop and develop independently based on the v8 architecture.
MIPS architecture, Godson currently conducts research and development based on this architecture. In the early days, Godson planned to develop PC processors based on this architecture, but the results were not good. Now Godson has turned to develop server chips based on this architecture.
The Power architecture, whose intellectual property rights are owned by IBM, was opened to Chinese companies in 2015. However, due to certain limitations in its opening, the development of domestic server chips based on this architecture has been affected to a certain extent.
For X86 architecture, Intel does not provide x86 instruction set authorization to any third party, and AMD and Intel cross authorization. VIA has stopped developing X86 instruction sets and chips; AMD and THATIC have established two joint ventures, of which AMD holds 51% of the shares, which ensures AMD's control over domestic X86 processors, and the Chinese side cannot intervene in Zen (Zen) The core can only do some peripheral chip work, and the company clearly no longer authorizes its x86 IP products to Chinese companies.
"Independent and controllable" refers to having independent intellectual property rights and chip safety and controllability, that is, having its own instruction set and microstructure. At present, only Loongson and Shenwei are eligible in China. However, buying instruction set licenses from foreign manufacturers (such as ARM command licenses) and designing microstructures by yourself can also meet the security and controllable requirements at this stage. In terms of hardware, it is safe and controllable, and after being attached to the AA system, it does not need to develop its own compiler, and is compatible with the software ecology of the AA system, greatly reducing the technical threshold, time and capital costs of research and development. It is more conducive to market-oriented operation under the current domestic dilemma of no "chip" available and urgent demand.
The global IT ecology is actually determined by chips, and the entire global IT system ecology is actually based on the chips used. For example, the X86 processor architecture. Intel continues to lead the world in processor chips under this architecture. It has cooperated with Microsoft to form the wintel ecosystem, and has firmly grasped the hegemony of the entire computer and low-end server market. ARM is a reduced instruction set processor architecture with the characteristics of small size and low energy consumption. It occupies a dominant position in mobile terminals. The representative manufacturer is ARM. IBM's POWER chip has excellent computing performance and fault tolerance in the era of mainframes. Once dominated, but due to the adoption of a closed system, it was eroded by X86 in the increasingly open cloud era, and currently only occupies a relatively small market share in the high-end computing field. Different processor chip architectures have different characteristics. Under different processor architectures, manufacturers who can make the best chips can often preemptively attract other upstream and downstream partners to adopt their own products and standards, and then build their own ecology. system. Therefore, the optimal chips under different architectures determine the differences between different ecosystems, and the partners in each ecosystem determine the degree of perfection of an ecosystem, and ultimately determine the competitiveness of the entire ecosystem.
2. Analysis of domestic chip technology
For domestic server chips, manufacturers such as Loongson, Phytium, Zhaoxin, and Huawei HiSilicon have released new products. Among them, CPU manufacturers under the ARM architecture include Tianjin Feiteng and Huawei HiSilicon. Among them, the performance of Phytium 2000+/64-core products is equivalent to that of some Intel mainstream E5 products. Huawei HiSilicon launched the Kunpeng 920 processor in January 2019, compatible with the ARM V8 architecture, 64 cores, 7nm process, and a main frequency of 2.6GHz. It has strong competitiveness in the mid-to-high-end server CPU market.
(1) Godson
The Loongson processor has fewer cores, lower cache, does not support hyper-threading, and has a lower processor frequency, so its support capability is far behind that of general-purpose x86 CPUs. The most important point is that the MIPS instruction set used by the Godson processor is not compatible with general-purpose x86 architecture servers, and needs to build its own ecosystem.
(2) Zhaoxin
The Zhaoxin processor adopts the x86 architecture, with fewer cores, lower cache, weaker support for the main frequency, and fewer memory channels. Compared with Haiguang's x86 CPU , there is also a significant gap. Although it provides virtualization support capabilities, it has weak adaptability in cloud computing / virtualization application scenarios. In addition, Zhaoxin's technology source - VIA 's X86 architecture technology authorization has expired in April 2018 ( new technical achievements after April 2018 cannot be used), and subsequent development resistance has increased.
(3) Shenwei
The Shenwei processor adopts the Alpha architecture, which has a large number of cores, a high main frequency, low single-core computing performance, does not support virtualization, and has poor ecological support capabilities for the overall operating system, database, and middleware. For the government information industry, using a server with poor compatibility and a completely different architecture from the X86 architecture to run the business system is a relatively high risk.
(4) Feiteng
The Phytium processor adopts the ARM v8 architecture, and its single-core computing performance is relatively low, and in terms of virtualization support, the support capability of the hardware CPU is relatively general. The ecological support capabilities of the overall operating system, database, and middleware are average, similar to Shenwei, and it is difficult to use a server with poor compatibility and a completely different architecture from the X86 architecture to run the business system.
(5) HiSilicon
Hisilicon Kunpeng series processors adopt the ARM architecture, which has a large number of cores and a high main frequency. However, due to the instruction set of the RISC architecture, it has advantages for the system software, database, and middleware of the original X86 ecosystem. Poor compatibility. Currently, Kunpeng CPUs are mainly supported by Huawei's own software ecosystem and domestic mainstream system software manufacturers (such as Kirin, Dameng, Dongfangtong, etc.).
(6) Haiguang
The Haiguang processor adopts the x86 architecture, and its superiority over other processors is mainly reflected in the localization and ecological nature of Haiguang. However, the disadvantage of Haiguang processor is that it only supports single-socket and two-socket servers, while the current mainstream high-end servers are four-socket and above, which will be slightly inferior in terms of scalability. In addition, since Haiguang has also been included in the entity list of the United States, future technology development can no longer rely on AMD authorization, and can only gradually embark on the road of independence based on the current technology. Moreover, AMD and THATIC have established two joint ventures, the most important of which is AMD holding 51% , which ensures AMD 's control over domestic X86 processors, and China cannot interfere with the Zen (Zen) core. Can only do some peripheral chip work.
From the perspective of the architecture level, the x86 -based Zhaoxin and Haiguang have the best ecological compatibility, and other manufacturers need to build their own ecosystems. From the perspective of the number of cores, the maximum number of cores of Phytium and HiSilicon is 64 cores, and the maximum number of cores of Haiguang is 32 cores. Considering the difference between single-core performance and core number, there is not much difference in overall performance. Loongson, Zhaoxin, and Shenwei have fewer cores, and there will be a certain gap in performance. From the perspective of main frequency, Loongson, Shenwei, and Phytium have low main frequency and poor data processing ability. From the perspective of caching, HiSilicon and Haiguang have a higher number of caches, faster data exchange, and better overall performance.
Figure 3-5 Comparative analysis of domestic self-developed chips
