Reprinted from: Industrial Computer Team

As the computing and control core of ICT equipment, CPU is responsible for reading, decoding and executing instructions. Due to the high threshold of R&D and the difficulty of ecological construction, CPU is considered as the "Mount Everest" in the integrated circuit industry.

Throughout the world, Intel and AMD lead the market in general CPU (desktop and server CPU); At home, domestic CPUs are in a critical period of catching up, and manufacturers represented by Kunpeng, Haiguang, Longxin, Feiteng, Zhaoxin, Shenwei are making every effort to build "China Core".

This paper will focus on the development history of domestic CPU and the layout of leading enterprises in the current industrial chain, as follows:

1、Review of the Development of Domestic CPUs& nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; 2. Kunpeng: a rapidly rising leader

3. Haiguang: a doer with leading performance & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; 4. Godson: a completely independent leader

5. Feiteng: the leader of PK ecology& nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; 6. Megacore: the pathfinder of joint venture CPU

7. Shen Wei: a strong man born for supercomputing

Review of the development of domestic CPU

The development history of China's domestic CPU can be divided into three stages:

Start: 1950s and 1970s

In 1956, semiconductor science and technology was listed as one of the four major emergency measures of national new technology. Since then, the Institute of Computing, the 109 Factory and the Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have been established successively, and breakthroughs have been made in germanium transistors, silicon planar transistors, integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices, providing the basis for the birth of 109B, 109C and 156 machines respectively.

In 1975, with the rise of large-scale integrated circuit technology, China's first integrated circuit million times computer 013 was successfully developed. The independent industrial development during this period laid a solid foundation for China's CPU industry.

Turning point: 1980s and 1990s

In 1985, the Institute of Computing and the Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences merged with 109 factories to establish the Microelectronics Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. However, in this period, due to the weakening of policy support and other reasons, the industry was completely market-oriented but lack of autonomy.

Speed up: since the beginning of the 21st century

Since the Tenth Five Year Plan, the issue of the autonomy of domestic CPUs has been put on the agenda again, and industrial policies have been increasing. The Taishan Plan and the 863 Plan have given birth to a number of domestic CPU brands. In 2002, the first general-purpose CPU in China, Godson-1 (code X1A50), was successfully taped.

In 2006, the major special project of "core high base" was launched, and "high" refers to high-end general-purpose CPU. In 2014, China released the Outline for Promoting the Development of the National IC Industry, and the first phase of the National IC Industry Investment Fund (hereinafter referred to as the National Grand Fund) was established, mainly to invest in IC manufacturing enterprises. In 2019, the second phase of the National Grand Fund was established, mainly to invest in the application end.

After decades of hard exploration, the domestic CPU industry has begun to take shape and a number of leading enterprises have emerged. We classify according to the CPU instruction set system:

1)Under the complex instruction set (CISC), X86 architecture is the main architecture, and domestic representative manufacturers include Haiguang and Megacore;

2)Under RISC, ARM architecture, MIPS architecture, Alpha architecture, etc. are involved. The domestic representative manufacturers include Kunpeng (ARM), Feiteng (ARM), Longxin (MIPS), Shenwei (Alpha), etc.

Kunpeng: a rapidly rising leader

Kunpeng is one of the main chips in Huawei's computing industry. In order to meet the demand for new computing power, Huawei built a dual computing power engine around "Kunpeng+Shengteng", built a chip family of five subsystems, namely computing, storage, transmission, management and intelligence, and achieved comprehensive self-development of computing chips.

Kunpeng series includes servers and PC processors. In recent years, Huawei has successively launched Hi1610, Hi1612, Hi1616 and other server CPU products to continuously improve the dominant frequency and core number, and finally developed the current flagship products, Kunpeng 920 and Kunpeng 920s, for servers and PCs.

Kunpeng has the advantage of "end-to-end cloud computing power isomorphism". Kunpeng CPU is based on ARM V8 architecture, and the processor core, micro architecture and chips are independently developed and designed by Huawei.

At present, there are more than 5 million Android applications based on ARM instruction set on the market. They are naturally compatible with ARM servers, and can run directly without migration. There is no instruction translation link in the running process, so the performance is not lost. Compared with the X86 heterogeneous, the performance can be improved by up to 3 times.

In January 2019, Huawei announced the launch of the Kunpeng 920, as well as the TaiShan server and Huawei cloud services based on the Kunpeng 920.

Kunpeng 920 adopts 7nm manufacturing process. In terms of specifications, it supports 64 cores, the main frequency can reach 2.6GHz, integrated 8-channel DDR4, supports PCIe 4.0 and CCIX interfaces, and can provide 640Gbps of total bandwidth.

Kunpeng 920 focuses on low power consumption and strong performance. Under typical dominant frequency, the SPECINT Benchmark score exceeds 930, 25% higher than the industry benchmark; At the same time, the energy efficiency ratio is 30% better than the industry benchmark.

Kunpeng's ecology is booming. Huawei adheres to open hardware and open software, enabling partners to promote the development of Kunpeng computing industry.

At present, more than 12 complete machine manufacturers have launched their own brand servers and PC products based on the Kunpeng motherboard. Huawei has also established at least 15 Kunpeng ecological innovation centers with industrial partners.

As the base of Kunpeng computing industry, the Kunpeng processor will adhere to the evolution rhythm of mass production, R&D and planning, implement the strategy of long-term investment, comprehensive layout, backward compatibility and continuous evolution, and efficiently meet the market demand.

Haiguang: a doer with leading performance

The performance of Haiguang chip is leading, and Zhongke Shuguang is an important shareholder. Haiguang Information Technology Co., Ltd. is a joint-stock subsidiary of Shuguang, a domestic high-performance computer leader.

In 2014, it was incorporated in Tianjin; After several equity changes, in October 2018, Zhongke Shuguang transferred 194.8 million shares of Haiguang Information at 5.5 yuan per share. After the transfer, it held 36.44% of the shares of Haiguang Information in total, becoming the largest shareholder of Haiguang Information.

In 2016, Haiguang Information and AMD reached a cooperation, jointly established two subsidiaries and introduced X86 architecture authorization. Among them, Chengdu Haiguang Microelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. has authorized IP ownership and is responsible for chip production. Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit Design Co., Ltd. is responsible for chip design and sales.

Based on the Zen1 architecture provided by AMD, Haiguang has developed 8-core desktop CPU Dyyana and 32 core server CPU Dyyana Plus.

Haiguang Information turned loss into profit, with obvious synergistic effect. In the second half of 2018, Haiguang CPU achieved mass production and was successively put into commercial use. The main customers were domestic server manufacturers.

In 2019, Haiguang achieved a revenue of 390 million yuan and a net profit of 60 million yuan, turning losses into profits for the first time, reflecting a significant synergy with manufacturers such as Zhongke Shuguang.

On the one hand, Zhongke Shuguang has high-quality customer resources and good sales channels;

On the other hand, Haiguang's CPU meets the needs of localization and will benefit from the rise of the IT industry based on "China Core".

Recently, China Telecom issued the announcement of centralized prequalification of bidding for goods of server (2020) centralized procurement project. The announcement showed that 11185 H-series servers were purchased intensively, and the CPU type was Kunpeng 920 series processor or Hyana series processor, indicating that domestic CPU had achieved large-scale industrial landing in the operator market with high technical complexity.

Godson: a completely independent leader

Godson is the first high-performance general-purpose CPU series developed in China. In 2001, Godson started in the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and was supported by 863, 973, nuclear high base and other projects. It has successfully streamed the first general-purpose CPU Godson 1, the first 64 bit general-purpose CPU Godson 2B, the first general-purpose CPU Godson 2E with a dominant frequency of more than 1GHz, the first quad core CPU Godson 3A, and completed the accumulation of underlying core technologies.

In 2010, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing Municipal Government jointly led the investment, and Longxin Zhongke Technology Co., Ltd. was officially established and began its industrialized operation.

Longxin adheres to the road of independent innovation and ecological construction. Godson follows the path of market driven technology, drives technological progress through market guidance within the system, and then participates in market competition outside the system.

Based on MIPS architecture, Godson has formed its own instruction set LoongISA. The micro structure and physical design of the processor core are all independently researched and developed, and more than 500 patents have been obtained.

Dragon Core learns from the business and technical model of Intel+Google+Apple, creates an end-to-end open whole industry chain ecosystem, and realizes cross platform compatibility of OS.

At present, Godson has three product series positioning.

The No. 3 large CPU is oriented to desktop/server applications, positioning Intel Core/Xeon series;

No. 2 medium CPU is oriented to industrial control and terminal applications, positioning Intel Astrowood series;

Facing specific applications and needs, the No. 1 small CPU has been used in Beidou satellite, oil exploration, intelligent equipment (door locks, water meters, electricity meters) and other aspects to achieve "going from heaven to earth, guarding the country and protecting the home".

Godson general CPU development in iteration:

The first generation is basically available. The single core performance of 3A1000 and 3B1500 is low. The SPEC CPU2006 test score is only 2-3 points. It takes 33 seconds to open a 20M document. The user experience is average.

Second generation, available. The 3A/B3000 quad core processor uses a 28nm process, with a dominant frequency of 1.35-1.5GHz. The single core performance reaches 10-11 minutes, surpassing the Atom series. It takes only 6 seconds to open a 20M document. It has the characteristics of high degree of safety and independence, multiple commodity categories of the complete machine factory, localization of bridge piece scheme, etc. At present, more than 300000 pieces have been shipped, which is the largest share of general CPU in the previous credit innovation project.

The third generation is easy to use. The 3A/B4000 quad core processor released in December 2019 doubled the performance under the same process, with the dominant frequency of 1.8-2.0GHz and the single core performance of 20-30 minutes, reaching the level of the "excavator", the final product of the AMD 28nm process, and can open 20M files per second.

In the future, increase the number of dominant frequencies and cores. The 3A5000 quad core desktop CPU will adopt the 12nm process, and the single core performance will strive to reach 25-30 points. It is compatible with the 3A4000 and can be replaced in situ. It is expected to be rolled out in the second quarter of 2020; The 3C5000 16 core server CPU also adopts the 12nm process and supports 4-16 channels of servers. It is expected to be streamed in the third quarter of 2020.

Feiteng: the leader of PK ecology

Feiteng CPU was created by the research team of the National University of Defense Technology in 1999. It has tried the X86, Epic, SPARC and ARM instruction sets successively, and designed FT-1000, FT-1000A, FT-1500 and other CPUs based on SPARC open source code.

Later, due to ecological considerations, it obtained the authorization of ARM instruction set, integrated the fully autonomous processor core, and formed a complete product line covering desktop, server, embedded and other fields.

Server CPU: FT-2000+/64 was released in 2017, integrating 64 FTC662 processor cores, 16nm process, and 2.0-2.3GHz main frequency. It is mainly used in high-performance server field, and its performance is equivalent to that of Intel Xeon E5-2695V3 series.

Among ARM v8 instruction set compatible products, FT-2000+/64 is at an advanced level in terms of single core computing capacity, single chip parallel performance, single chip cache consistency scale and other indicators.

In May 2019, the FT-2000+/64 based server product group was released at the Fuzhou Digital China Summit.

Desktop CPU: In 2019, Feiteng released FT-2000/4, and its overall performance is equivalent to that of Intel Core I5 series. FT-2000/4 integrates four FTC663 processor cores with a 16nm process and a dominant frequency of 2.6-3.0GHz. In the SPEC 2006 test, the measured integer calculation score of the whole chip is 61.1, and the floating point calculation score is 62.5, which is nearly one time higher than the FT-1500A/4 of the previous generation, and the memory access bandwidth is three times higher.

At present, FT-2000/4 has completed the adaptation work with the domestic Galaxy Qilin operating system, including Lenovo, Great Wall and other complete machine manufacturers are developing terminals and boards.

PK system enables information technology application innovation. Feiteng CPU actively participated in the construction of PK (Feiteng Phytium CPU and Kylin Kylin operating system) system led by CEC (China Electronics Group) to build a safe and reliable national team of computer hardware and software infrastructure in China.

Megacore: the pathfinder of joint venture CPU

Mega core CPU series is launched by Shanghai Mega core Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd. The company was established in 2013 by a joint venture between a subsidiary of Shanghai SASAC and VIA Electronics.

Based on the X86 architecture, the company has successfully developed and mass-produced multiple generations of general-purpose CPUs, formed two product series of "first" and "first win", realized the development and innovation of "from dual core to eight core", "from 1.6GHz to 3.0GHz", "from processor+chipset solution to SoC single chip solution", and has the ability and conditions for independent evolution and development.

The main products have good performance. In June 2019, Megacore officially released a new generation of 16nm X86 processor products in Shanghai, namely the first KX-6000 and the second KH-30,000. The new generation of megacore processor is the first domestic general-purpose processor with a main frequency of 3.0GHz. It supports dual channel DDR4-3200 memory and adopts SoC design, including CPU, GPU and chipset. The chip integration is further enhanced, and the performance and power consumption are 3 times higher than the previous generation.

The KX-6000 is adapted to mainstream operating systems such as win7 and win10. The SPEC 2006 INT RATE score is 170 points. The performance of a single chip has reached the same level as the seventh generation i5, and the application experience has been greatly improved.

Actively carry out prospective research. Mega Core plans to launch Kaisheng KH-40000 series CPU in 2021, which is based on 16nm process, 32 cores and supports two-way interconnection, and is dedicated to the high-performance server product market.

In addition, Mega Core has begun the definition and research and development of process products below 7nm. As the first KX-7000 series, it will continue the SoC design scheme and aim at the international mainstream level in terms of memory, USB, PCIe and other specifications.

Megacore ecology has advantages. While realizing technological innovation and product progress, Megacore always maintains open cooperation and maximizes the advantages of compatibility with X86 ecology.

Megacore CPUs are widely used in computer machines, laptops, all-in-one computers, servers and embedded computing platforms, and can provide reliable solutions for Party and government offices, finance, education, transportation, network security, energy and other industries.

Shen Wei: a strong man born for supercomputing

Shenwei CPU is developed by Shanghai High Performance Integrated Circuit Center, based on the alpha architecture of DEC, and has carried out instruction set expansion and independent innovation in micro structure, which has been successfully applied in domestic supercomputers.

Develop iteratively in exploration. In 2006, Shenwei 1 single core CPU was successfully developed with 130nm process and 900MHz dominant frequency. In 2008, Shenwei 2 dual core CPU was introduced, both of which are 130nm process, and the main frequency is 1.4GHz. In 2010, Shenwei 1600 16 core CPU was launched with a 65nm process, which was used in Shenwei Blue Light supercomputing.

In 2012, Shenwei 1610 and 410 were launched successively, both with 40nm technology and 1.6GHz dominant frequency, respectively for servers and PCs. Shenwei has formed three series of product lines: high-performance computing CPU, server/desktop CPU and embedded CPU.

Shenwei 432, 443 and 3232 are under research. Shenwei 432 and 443 are 4-core CPUs. The fourth and fifth generation Shenwei cores are used respectively. The main frequency will reach 2.2-2.5GHz and 2.8-3.0GHz respectively. The comprehensive performance will reach 60% and 80% of the international mainstream desktop CPUs in the same period.

Shenwei 3232 is a 32 core CPU, mainly for cloud computing and big data. Its comprehensive performance is expected to be 60% - 70% of Intel's mainstream server CPU in the same period.

Shenwei Information Security Industry Alliance came into being. At present, there are more than 50 members, including Shanghai High Performance Integrated Circuit Center, China Instrument Import and Export (Group) Corporation, and China Electronics Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., covering chip design, basic software, industrial control, complete machines and solutions, customized services and other industries.

In March 2020, Tongxin UOS has also completed the adaptation of Shenwei 421 series and 1621 series models.

Conclusion:

CPU localization tide, the crowd is chasing the Central Plains. As the core basic component of ICT industry, CPU is a "lifeline" for national development.

At present, driven by the international environment, industrial policies and market demand, a large number of domestic CPU manufacturers have made continuous breakthroughs in technology, performance, ecological construction and other aspects, making contributions to the independence, controllability, safety and credibility of CPU, and going further and further on the road of "easy-to-use" marketization.

In the future, the cause of "China Core" will be as high as a bird can fly, and the vast sea will depend on fish leaping, with huge space potential. Chinese science and technology enterprises are worth looking forward to from pursuers to concurrent pioneers, and then to leaders!