The two Godson CPU core open source, which means what?
October 21, the Ministry of Education Computer Education Steering Committee, China Computer Education Association special committee will be held during 2016 CNCC in Taiyuan, Shanxi province "for the computer system Ability Godson CPU colleges and universities open source program" activities at the event, Godson in the Division the GS132 and GS232 announced two CPU cores to universities and academia open source. So -
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How open source Godson CPU core performance?
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The CPU open source company in the past what?
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What are the implications of open source CPU core will bring it?
How open source CPU core performance?
CPU core, also known as micro-structure, the CPU performance, security, power consumption, the most important factor in determining the cost, daily we call dual-core, quad-core, eight-core chip, in fact, is the interface 4, 8 CPU cores interconnected and integrated into a silicon chip like Intel's Haswell, ARM's Cortex A72, AMD's Zen, Godson GS464E are CPU core. In the design of the CPU process, more than 80% of the effort spent on the CPU core, therefore, how to design a high-performance CPU core can be said to be one of the key technology CPU design.
Currently, in addition Godson, Shen Wei, soar other old design units with high-performance CPU core outside of their own design, most of the domestic IC design companies is still in the IP purchased abroad "save" a SOC stage, with their own CPU core design the units are numbered. The Godson CPU core to the two universities and academia open source, it can make academia to Godson CPU core based on the development of products, and the CPU core Godson as a template to learn how to design a CPU core.
Godson CPU core for the open-source GS132 and GS232. GS132 is a single emitter structure 32, using three static pipeline structure, performance on ARM Cortex-M0 / M3 / M4 considerably. Mainly used for oil, electricity, drilling, smart meter and smart meters. GS232 is a 32-bit dual-emission structure, using five dynamic pipeline structure, and properties equivalent to ARM9 ARM11,, 1B, 1C, 1E using Godson. 1A, mainly used for a variety of embedded products, smart appliance, a satellite, industrial and other fields are used as HS3700 quality chips on the purchase of authorized GS232, the chip is used Hisense smart TV .
Sun will ever T1, T2 open source
In 1985, successfully developed a Sun Sparc RISC CPU, and then assisted with the development of Unix-based server systems, the Sun workstations and servers to emerge, and can gradually against HP and DEC minicomputers such as traditional Chinese. In 1992 Sun launched the market's first multi-processor desktop SPARCstation 10 system, in 1993 Sun entered the Fortune 500, to 2001, Sun has fifty thousand employees worldwide, market capitalization of over two hundred billion dollars.
Sun started with hardware, but as also Xiao, also lost, emphasis on hardware, the Sun overlook the importance of software, in particular, did not have enough vigilance on the Wintel alliance. In the late 1990s, due to the rise of the Internet, coupled with Sun workstations with respect to the DEC minicomputers and IBM mainframes have a price advantage, which leads though Sun's SMB market share has been eroded Wintel, but because of its workstation can encroach DEC and HP minicomputer market, its profit model can survive. But after the Internet bubble burst, with strife Wintel alliance, Sun servers and workstations business is unsustainable, the first half of 2002 alone, turnover fell to a three-year said, and $ 900 million from 2001 earnings, fell loss of $ 500 million, followed by Sun devastated by Oracle for $ 7.4 billion acquisition in 2009. Before being acquired, perhaps to go, or is for any other reason, Sun will UltraSparc T1, T2 open source.
T1和T2到底如何呢？根据知乎网友“迪迦奥特曼”介绍，Sun开源了全套的RTL代码……拿着Sun开源的那套东西，做一些自定义修改，可以跑FPGA。学术圈里面已经有几个拿着OpenSPARC T1成功流片的项目，所以流片是肯定可行的…..不过T1、T2单核性能非常差，T1相当于上世纪80年代末期的水平，而T2相当于90年代早期的水平。所以千万不要指望T1和T2能有什么商业竞争力。OpenSPARC T1/T2现在最大的价值是帮助学术圈中的研究者们快速搭建一个原型系统，并且能感受一下2002~2005年时的工业级代码长什么样子。知乎网友“迪迦奥特曼”还表示，T2的源码存在BUG，至于是故意埋进去的，还是开源的时候没有处理好导致的无心之失，他就不知道了。
另外，据说国防科大在充分借鉴T1和T2的源代码后，先后开发出了飞腾1000和飞腾1500，两款芯片分别被用于天河1号和天河2号。
IBM的OpenPOWER
Power诞生于1990年，并斩获过多项世界第一——全球第一个双核CPU，全球第一款刀片服务器CPU，第一个战胜国际象棋冠军加里·卡斯帕罗夫的电脑深蓝所采用的CPU，第一个量产主频超过5G的CPU，第一个高超线程的CPU，以及第一个5000针的CPU，以及第一个封测成本比硅片成本还高的CPU，第一个单芯片量产价格突破10万美元的CPU......其应用范围曾经涵盖过小型、中型、大型主机，从高端到低端的工作站都可以看见Power的身影。
此外，Power还曾占据服务器市场三分之二的市场份额。而IBM也凭借Power巩固了自己科技巨人的地位，不仅在CPU研发上有着乱序执行的基础框架、寄存器重命名等一些列先驱性贡献，在科研上曾经一度成果斐然——在2001年，IBM获得美国专利和商标局授权专利数量高达3411项，比HP、Intel、Sun、Microsoft、Compaq、Dell、Apple、EMC、Oracle、EDS、Accenture和AOL在内的12家最大的美国IT业公司加在一起还要多。
但就在IBM和Power芯片光芒四射的同时，Intel却利用与微软结成联盟，并充分借力戴尔、康柏等整机厂，以Wintel联盟的方式在市场上大杀四方，加上IBM太过于任性，更倾向于服务土豪用户，没能细分和精耕市场，对市场和研发的综合掌握能力都不及Wintel，使Power空有一身高性能却难以抵挡Wintel联盟的侵蚀——从PC到工作站、服务器Power、Sparc等架构CPU的市场份额逐步被X86架构CPU蚕食。
与此同时，由于软件厂商若要兼容多种架构CPU的成本越来越高，造成软件厂商开始逐步放弃兼容一些架构的CPU——Power、Mips、Sparc、Alhpa等架构CPU先后被软件厂商抛弃，而原本性能最弱的X86芯片则依靠Wintel联盟和软件生态的优势笑到了最后。即便是曾经占据三分之二市场份额的服务器领域，低端服务器已然被Intel的X86芯片侵占，Power唯有在对可靠性、稳定性要求非常高，在决策上也非常保守的使用场景下，比如银行所采用的高端服务器市场寻找存在感。
正是昔日曾经辉煌的Power有着日渐被边缘化的趋势，如果IBM依然完全独占Power，其他IT公司根本不会基于Power构建基础软硬件。因此，IBM选择了联合Google、NVIDIA、TYAN、Mellanox成立了OpenPOWER联盟和OpenPOWER基金会试图力挽狂澜，旨在通过开放合作的模式，将IBM的Power硬件资产与软件堆栈，以及第三方联盟伙伴的软件堆栈深度结合，在芯片设计、系统设计与开源软件三个层面推动Power生态环境的发展与壮大。
不过，相对于Sun开源T1、T2后，大家都可以免费下载源码不同，要获得Power的源码，要付出不菲的代价，以2014年IBM向中国大陆中晟宏芯授权Power8源代码为例，为了拿到Power的全套代码和工具，据小道消息称，中方为此支付了2亿美元左右的费用。
学术界将收益于龙芯CPU开源
一直以来，我国计算机领域的教育更多的还是教学生如何“用”计算机而不是“造”计算机，这直接导致国内IT人才结构失衡，应用开发型人才充足，但底层基础系统研发人才却极度匮乏，使中国庞大的IT产业建立在国外软硬件系统平台之上。
龙芯将CPU核向高校和学术界开源，则给予在校大学生一个很好的学习实践平台——龙芯中科资助大学老师基于龙芯平台设计实验课程，使学生可以在真实的（而不是简化的）CPU上运行真实的（而不是简化的）操作系统，在龙芯实验平台上启动操作系统并进行性能分析。在流水线设计方面，让学生把GS132的三级静态流水线改造成五级静态流水线。在TLB和Cache设计方面，让学生在五级GS132处理器核上按MIPS32规范实现TLB及Cache，运行通用操作系统，进行有/无Cache的性能分析。在双发射结构设计方面，把GS132处理器核改造成双发射CPU，进行单发射和双发射性能比较。在动态流水线设计方面，在GS232基础上改写部分模块（如乘法器、保留站等）进行静态单发射、静态双发射、动态双发射的性能分析。
（龙芯教育实验平台）
此外，龙芯还研发了CPU实验平台、操作系统实验平台、并行处理实验平台等数款龙芯教学平台，通过为高校提供完整的线上、线下实验环境，助力教学改革和计算机专业学生的系统能力培养，实现“设计真实处理器，运行真实操作系统”。
总之，正如知乎网友“迪迦奥特曼”对OpenSPARC的评价：OpenSPARC T1/T2现在最大的价值是帮助学术圈中的研究者们快速搭建一个原型系统，并且能感受一下2002~2005年时的工业级代码长什么样子。龙芯将两款CPU核开源的影响和作用也大致与OpenSPARC类似。
助推软件生态建设
Currently, in the case of Godson 3A3000 has successfully taped out, in terms of military and political office market, the biggest problem is not the Godson CPU performance is not enough, but the lack of software ecosystem support, and software ecosystem build himself alone Godson it is difficult to do, it must rely on everyone firewood high flame mode, launch partners, the open source community, and maker culture groups jointly established. This time appropriate to the two CPU cores universities and academia open source helps to let the students learn how to develop around Godson, students after graduation, naturally relevant skills are developed around Godson, which Godson software helps ecological construction.
However, the CPU core open source does not necessarily mean that the ecological set up, in the past there are some IT companies will open source its own CPU, such as SUN once will open its own CPU, National Defense also download the source code and use it based on the development of the FT 1000 and FT 1500, these two are also used CPU No.1 and No. 2 Tianhe Tianhe. Even so, it can not save the fate of SPARC gradually marginalized, their ecology so far failed to set up.
At the end of last year, ARM Cortex-M0 processor will be open source, and preferential licensing fees to help start-ups accelerate chip development processes. In addition, there risc-v such open source products, and an increasing trend of fire --linux, gcc, llvm even bsd-like operating systems are beginning to support risc-v ...... precisely because of the open source core CPU not only Godson, simply want to be able to rely on the CPU core open source software ecosystem built the idea is obviously not realistic, to play a positive role in ecological construction, on the one hand need to continue to invest for a long time, it also requires companies , universities joint collaboration and close coordination.
Epilogue
The reason why the two Godson CPU core open source, on the one hand is in line with the education reform national computer professional courses, on the other hand also to train a group of hardware and software development to give Godson a foundation of fresh blood, and to a wealth of software Godson ecological and industrial chain. However, the last exactly what kind of effect can be achieved, as well as be the test of time.