According to Tom's Hardware, overseas motherboard manufacturer Dannie recently launched a new motherboard - MBX-Z60A micro-ATX. The motherboard is different in that it is not compatible with either Intel CPUs or AMD CPUs, and the CPU it adapts to, "KX-6640MA", comes from mega cores.
Zhaoxin, this name may be somewhat unfamiliar to everyone. Founded in 1968 and AMD in 1969, Intel has a history of more than half a century, and Mega Core was founded in 2013, a young business that has shouldered great responsibilities since birth.
The importance of chips is beyond doubt, and no one wants to encounter an emergency when our business or institution is stuck in the neck of other countries. Dannie launched a motherboard adapted to MJP because Russia was sanctioned, AMD and Intel withdrew from the local market, and Russia had to look for alternatives. So, Zhaoxin walked into Russia.
Can be recognized by Russia, enough to show that the mega core has a certain strength, in addition to the above KX-6640MA processor, Lenovo has also launched a laptop equipped with the mega core KX-6000 series CPU. However, Zhaoxin is only some strength, and there is still a big gap compared with Intel, AMD and other companies.
China's chip technology research and development and production is relatively backward, even if the progress of mega core is very fast, it cannot be compared with old companies such as Intel and AMD for the time being. Fortunately, on the road of domestic chips, Mega Core is not alone.
Do you know these domestic chip manufacturers?
When it comes to domestic chips, it has to be said that Huawei, HiSilicon Kirin processors, once posed a huge threat to Qualcomm. Unfortunately, Huawei is limited, and the Kirin processor is struggling. In fact, Huawei not only has a mobile phone processor, but also a PC processor, such as the Kunpeng series, which represents the Kunpeng 920.
Kunpeng processor is based on ARM architecture and has been used in server, desktop office and other scenarios. Compared with the self-developed architecture, the direct purchase of existing architecture licenses, the development of processors is simpler, the cost is lower. In addition to Huawei HiSilicon, the Feiteng processor is also based on the ARM architecture, the Mega Core and Haiguang processors are based on the X86 architecture, and the Shenwei processor is based on the Alpha architecture.
Although the self-developed structure is laborious and laborious, it can firmly grasp the initiative in its own hands. On the road of self-developed architecture, the farthest to go is Loongson. LoongArch architecture named "LoongArch", at the end of April 2022, the Loongson 2K1000LA processor tape-out based on the architecture was successfully achieved, and the Loongson 2K0500 successfully developed in 2021 and the Loongson 3A5000 successfully developed in 2020 jointly achieved high- and low-level coverage.
At present, there are many computers equipped with Loongson CPU in China, but basically not for ordinary consumers, if you really want to experience, you can go to the second-hand platform to see, the price is not expensive, the motherboard, CPU set is usually within a thousand yuan.
Here we also want to talk about Shenwei, you may not be familiar with this company, but one of their products should have been heard of, that is, Shenwei Taihu Light. On June 20, 2016, Sunway Taihu Glory topped the global top 500 supercomputers and still ranks second today. The most exciting part is that the computing module used by Sunway Taihu Light is 40960 Shenwei 26010 processors.
You may have noticed that domestic manufacturers have launched a lot of self-developed processors, but we rarely see them, let alone use them. This is because only the processor is not enough, the most important thing is the ecology, if there is no system and software adapted to the processor, then the processor will have no role, which is the biggest difficulty of the self-developed architecture.
The future of domestic chips, light or darkness?
If there is no ecology, then the domestic chip will always be used in a few scenarios, fortunately, there is no domestic system and adapted software. At present, the more well-known desktop domestic operating systems include Galaxy Kirin, Tongxin UOS, Youqilin, etc., of which Tongxin UOS is praised by Ni Guangnan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, as "the highest level of domestic operating systems".
Xiao Lei has always been full of curiosity about new things, so when the UOS home version was in beta last September, the system was installed on a computer and joined the official user group in order to feedback various problems encountered in use at any time. As far as Xiao Lei's personal experience is concerned, UOS is indeed more mature, although it has encountered some bugs during the period, such as every time you boot, you need to re-enter the password to connect to Wi-Fi, but the official response speed is very fast, and it can always quickly fix the BUG.
If it is only a document office, Unified Trust UOS can meet, WeChat, QQ, WPS, QQ Browser and other software we commonly use, can run on Unified Trust UOS. Unfortunately, the office is not just about processing documents, not to mention that we also need gaming entertainment. There are not many software adapted to UOS, let alone game entertainment. Therefore, after using UOS for a period of time, Xiao Lei still returned to Windows.
Ecological perfection cannot be achieved overnight, and it takes time and economic investment. When Huawei launched HarmonyOS, there were not many software to adapt in the early stage, but many developers soon joined in, providing a wealth of apps for HarmonyOS users. The application of UOS adaptation is also gradually increasing, and the ecology is becoming more and more perfect, but the game may be a big problem, I am afraid that not many games will be willing to adapt to UOS in a few years.
At present, Tongxin UOS and Galaxy Kirin have adapted to many domestic processors, and there are finished computers to buy, such as Baode Ziqiang Longxin desktop PT620L3. This computer is equipped with Loongson 3A5000 processor, equipped with 2GB unique display, running the Galaxy Kirin operating system, priced at 6500 yuan. From the practical point of view, the computer selling 6500 yuan is indeed somewhat expensive, but this is no way, the manufacturer's early investment in research and development of chips is too high, even if there is national support, it is difficult to get out of the loss state.
From the perspective of chip design, the performance of domestic chips has been able to meet the needs of users' offices, if paired with the domestic graphics card developed by Jingjia micro, it is not difficult to hit a dozen Tencent family barrels. Not to mention that the desktop processor is not so strict for the process requirements, 14nm is enough, SMIC's 14nm process has been put into production, can provide them with protection.
Before dawn, it is the darkest hour
Xiao Lei exaggerated a lot of domestic processors, but it cannot be denied that the current domestic processors are far from reaching the point of consumer satisfaction. I believe that everyone has seen that there are only a small number of domestic processors for consumers, most of them are facing the server field, this is because the server processor does not need too high single-core performance and main frequency, the 3A5000 main frequency produced by Loongson is only 2.5GHz, and the AMD Ryzen™ 5000 series is positioned lower R5 5600X, and the default main frequency is as high as 3.7GHz.
From the performance point of view, the gap between domestic processors and Intel, AMD is too big, ecological aspects, can run the Windows system of domestic processors are good, some self-developed architecture CPU, can only wait for domestic systems to adapt to more software. Galaxy Kirin or UOS, in the face of Windows, it can almost be said that there is no power of a war.
Domestic processors have made certain achievements, and even launched a small number of products for the consumer-grade market, but we must also admit that the spring of domestic chip manufacturers has not yet arrived, and they are still in the dark. If you plan to buy a computer now, Xiao Lei will certainly not recommend any products equipped with domestic processors to you, unless you really don't have bad money, just buy and play.
Before dawn, the darkest hour, it does not represent despair, but it tells us that hope is at hand. The road to domestic chips is obstructive and long, but as long as you persist, there will always be a bright day.