LoongArch's first LoongArch Ecological Innovation Conference was held recently, LoongSon Zhongke and many partners released products or solutions based on LoongArch's independent instruction set, released LoongArch ecological white paper, and simultaneously held the award ceremony of the Loongson Entrepreneur Support Program to attract small and medium-sized enterprises to participate in research and development. Hu Weiwu, chairman of Loongson Zhongke, said in an exclusive interview with all-media reporters of Communications World that "chip IP, software ecology, and chip production" are the three major pain points of China's chip industry, and also the three major blockages in China's technology industry to open up the internal cycle.
At present, as a leading domestic chip enterprise, Loongson Zhongke starts from the basic instruction architecture and continuously introduces products with performance close to the mainstream level of the market, which has received market attention. In the future, Loongson Zhongke will uphold the concept of openness, compatibility and optimization to build an independent ecosystem with partners and form China's own chip ecosystem.
Loongson has formed its own industrial form
Domestic chips are moving towards thousands of industries
Ecological construction is the key to industrial development. Hu Weiwu, chairman of Longxin Zhongke, said that an excellent ecology has three main characteristics. The first is to be open, the more open the partners, the more partners. The second is compatibility, and the work of partners is formed into a synergy. The third is optimization, which improves performance through system optimization rather than just CPU upgrades. Loongson Zhongke will adhere to the above-mentioned concept of openness, compatibility and optimization to build an independent ecosystem with partners.
Hu Weiwu said that LoongArch has three ideas for building a software ecosystem based on the LoongArch architecture, one is to do a good job in its own operating system. Loongson will develop its own operating system model by supporting large operating system application enterprises such as Tencent, Lenovo enterprises that do this, and the majority of application service enterprises, drawing on the experience of Windows and Android systems; the second is to standardize hardware compatibility. Through a unified system, the architecture is compatible with the direct operating system. The combination of operating system and hardware, the specification is very critical, Loongson has done a good job, now no matter whose operating system, as long as there is a program to run on the Loongson architecture; the third is to finally fully consider the autonomous framework.
Hu Weiwu revealed that Loongson Zhongke will launch a compatible framework this year, as long as it is LoongArch architecture, as long as one is moved, other applications will "run up". On this basis, Loongson Zhongke will also launch its own programming framework and programming language.
"We don't have a domestic operating system now, we are all domestic distributions of open source operating systems. When we have our own operating system above the programming language, we are called a domestic operating system. "Hu Weiwu said that Longxin has now completed the first step, the second step is being done, and the third step has begun to be done." We have basically built a complete basic software system. ”
At present, based on LoongArch's autonomous instruction set, loongArch has initially built a basic software technology system. Includes BIOS, Kernel, GCC Compiler, LLVM Compiler, GoLang Compiler, Java Virtual Machine, JavaScript Virtual Machine, . THE CORE MODULES OF THE .NET VIRTUAL MACHINE, BROWSER, MEDIA PLAYER, GRAPHICS LIBRARY, KVM VM AND OTHER OPERATING SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN MIGRATED TO LOONGARCH AND INTEGRATED IN LOONGNIX, THE BASIC VERSION OF LOONGNIX, AND PROVIDED TO ECOSYSTEM PARTNERS. Today, Tongxin operating system, Kirin operating system, Dragon Lizard operating system, WPS office software, WeChat, 360 browser, etc. have supported LoongArch. Support for select applications on the X86/Linux platform and X86/Windows platforms as well as a large number of printer peripherals for the X86/Windows platform through binary translation.
Zhang Ge, vice president of Loongson Zhongke, said that nearly 100 manufacturers have launched hundreds of LoongArch-based LoongArch desktop, server, network security, password and other products, LoongArch has led the establishment of loongson ecological adaptation service industry alliance since 2020, and more than 70 adaptation centers and related institutions have joined, forming a linkage system of adaptation services throughout the country. The follow-up LoongArch will be committed to creating a LoongArch branch in the international community, and at the same time form a LoongArch alliance to open the LoongArch instruction set for free, the alliance is not only open to the instruction set itself, but also to the IP core implementation code of some processors, to create the LoongArch ecological alliance with the greatest degree of openness.
Hu Weiwu said that the Loongson industrial base will establish an industrial system from three levels. One is CPU, memory, hard disk, CPU chip, memory chip, hard disk chip and motherboard as the basis; the second is the whole machine, PC, server, printer, network equipment, various financial terminals, medical terminals, etc.; the third is to provide mature solutions, education solutions, medical solutions, network security solutions. The three levels have gathered dozens of enterprises, and the business continues to radiate outward on the basis of doing a good job on the platform. Loongson is also making various industrial chain and organizational attempts, and further moving forward on the basis of summarizing experience.
Power GPU
Combined with the CPU double sword
In June 2021, the Shanghai Stock Exchange officially accepted Loongson Zhongke's IPO application for the Science and Technology Innovation Board. At the same time, Loongson Zhongke disclosed the prospectus, which shows that it will raise 3.5 billion yuan to invest in the research and development and industrialization of advanced process chips and high-performance general-purpose graphics processor chips and supplement the company's working capital. Of these, 1.25 billion is used in advanced chip research and development and related industries, and about 1 billion is used in high-performance GPUs.
Loongson's next development target is the GPU. Doing GPUs also needs to be ecological, Hu Weiwu said, the information industry (information age) has gone through three stages: the digital stage, the network stage, and the intelligent era. It is like building three floors, there is no second floor without one layer, there is no third floor without two layers, and each floor has two core technologies: one layer is CPU + operating system, the second layer is network technology + graphics technology, the third layer is virtualization technology + intelligent technology, virtualization is the core technology of the cloud platform, and intelligent technology is MPU. Loongson has also gradually mastered these six technologies.
In the GPU field, Loongson's GPU has a prototype and is integrated in other chips. Loongson GPU is a high-end graphics card and a computing acceleration card that not only supports AI computing, but also supports other scientific computing. In the future, based on graphics, AI acceleration can be achieved with Loongson CPU to achieve optimal performance and cost optimization on the system.
In terms of process, Hu Weiwu said that in the future, Loongson will move from a 14-nanometer process node to a 7-nanometer process. At the same time, the upgrading of integrated circuits is not a relationship of substitution, but a relationship of supplementation. In the field of smart door locks, 130 nanometers are used, and the industrial control field is used in 28 nanometers, and the effect is very good. Therefore, the old process will still be used, not after the new process is made, the old process will be replaced, but supplemented.
From the performance point of view, Loongson's CPU high-end chip is TIKTOK, and TOK is the same process to improve performance through design optimization. 3A3000 is 28 nm, 3A4000 is also 28 nm, but 3A4000 on the basis of 3A3000, completely through design optimization performance doubled, 3A5000 process upgrade, coupled with structural optimization, performance increased by 50%, 60%. Now 3A4000, 3A5000 has developed to the third generation, the future 3A6000 is a TOK, in the 14-nanometer process stage, the performance can be improved by 40%, 50%.
In terms of operating system, facing the future, Hu Weiwu said that he strives to form a double dragon system, one is Loongnix, Loongnix operating system, and the other is LoongArch LoongArch loong architecture system, but this still needs time. Through Loongson Zhongke, we can see that the independence and autonomy of the mainland CPU industry can be completely achieved, and we also hope to see more and more enterprises with truly independent technology stand out and develop and grow.
End
Author: Liu Qicheng
Editor-in-Charge/Layout: Fan Fan
Review: Shen Qing
Producer: Liu Qicheng
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