Chinese chipmakers have developed its own CPU instruction set

hirushaadi · April 21, 2021

Summary

The chinese processor developer Loongson Technology has announced that it has developed its own CPU instruction set!

below is an image of their CPU

Quotes

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Chinese processor developer Loongson Technology this week announced that it had developed its own CPU instruction set architecture (ISA), Loongson Architecture (LoongArch) that has nothing to do with architectures designed outside of China. Surprisingly, the first processors based on the new architecture have already been taped out and will be released commercially this year.

For many years Loongson's processors relied on different versions of the company's LoongISA architecture, which were subsets of the MIPS64 architecture. This approach allowed the company to maintain compatibility with software developed for MIPS64 (which includes software for supercomputers) and also introduce its own extensions to boost performance in modern applications.

By contrast, LoongArch is said to feature almost 2,000 of proprietary instructions. Meanwhile, the company said that it had removed outdated instructions not suitable for modern hardware designs to ensure low power consumption and simpler designs. In addition to the base instruction set, LoongArch features binary conversion extension instructions (LBT), vector processing extension instructions (LSX), advanced vector processing extension instructions (LASX), and virtualization extension instructions (LVZ), reports PC Watch.

My thoughts:

Will this be the end of Arm, x86 and others? no, I think not! This might be something very basic. I won't think this will outperform the current CPU's in the western architectures of the current market but will place itself here soon! what makes me think that my thoughts are wrong is this quote

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Loongson CPUs are already installed in China's army weapons, satellites and commercial products.

As the company keeps profiting, it can be expected that Loongson will go on to develop faster CPUs to satisfy the need of the above fields.

The recent China-U.S. trade war also opened a new window for Loongson and other domestic chip companies.

U.S. has banned Huawei for no solid reason. They can also do that to any other company in China, or even across the globe.

The fear of being cut lose by all U.S. companies has created a need for domestic alternatives in China. And Loongson, obviously, can satisfy this need. If Loongson keeps on making faster chips, more PC and server, users are going to turn their eyes to this "hard to survive" brand.