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China Forges Ahead With 'Dragon' CPU
Dynamic Drive writes "There's an interesting article on Cnet regarding China's eager attempts to lessen her dependence on foreign technology when it comes to CPUs. The latest endeavor is a homegrown chip named 'Dragon', which apparently is roughly equivalent in speeds to those of Intel chips made between 1995-1997, or 200-260MHz. While I think such an audacious effort is most certainly commendable, I can't help but wonder what the potential things that could go wrong with designing a CPU are, such as software incompatibilities etc." This is the same processor mentioned in September, only now more than 10,000 of the chips have been made.
It's the design the matters.
Having your own people use your own equipment is no good if someone you don't trust - and who do the Chinese military/security agencies trust - has designed it and you cannot know if the chip will blab on you.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
Come on...they have to start somewhere. I think it's pretty impressive that they got this far, considering that it took Intel some 30-40 years to reach those speeds.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Besides, if you run more efficent software, 266 is more then enough..
Please no jokes about "640k being enough for anyone". im serious.. most of the time we waste tons of cycles, beacuse we can. one doesnt *need* a ghz chip to get work done..
And if its truely homegrown, and not cloned, then they deserve a LOT of credit for getting this far this fast.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What do people need a GHz+ CPU for?
Digital Video?
DTP?
Games?
Databases?
SW Development?
Yes and no. All these things happened before CPUs hit 2 GHz, and my 800 MHz iMac does fine in Final Cut Pro and Photoshop, hell it works great with Virtual PC 6 w/Windows 2000 and AutoCAD 2000.
200-300 MHz will do fine for the vast majority of users. People on dial-up in rural China need a little self-contaned box that hooks up to a TV and plays Video CDs, not a 3 GHz Intel chip that needs a 700 Watt Power Supply.
What could not have succeeded in a free economy, can be forced upon users and developers by an all-controling state.
In other words, if they really decide to do this, China of all nations is very well positioned. They'll probably port Linux to their hardware and have a western-free platform pretty soon.
Are you on drug(s)?!! Why not?
Gee, why don't you put yourself in their place. They don't want something cheap; they want something that's completely free (as in "libre"). No IP issues, full control of the process, etc. A lot like why you might do "clean-room" implementations of various hardware... to avoid legal issues.
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I'm an integrated circuit designer and I can tell you from experience that some of the best designers I've ever met are from the People's Republic of China.
That's arguing from anecdote, not experience.
No sovereign nation can take such a risk.
Kids, microprocessors are not just happy little toys we like to geek with, they are military weapons.
No I don't mean hacking, I mean weapon guidance.
The first SAM interception of an enemy warplane from a USN ship was done with a 64K 1 MhZ fire control director. Ever since, more powerful computer power drives all of our 'smart' weapons. China knows this and is probably not interested in having a CPU ban cripple their firepower.
Building a native capability means that China can make militarized versions without worrying about whether we 'messed up' a production run or can exploit a flaw we built in.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
... in China, everything can be made for a fraction of the price that it costs American companies. An American IC designer makes $90,000 to $120,000. His or her Chinese counterpart would make $25,000, and that counterpart would live like a king in China. China realizes it can utilize its massive, cheap manpower to wreak economic terrorism on us spoiled Americans.
The PRC could just reverse engineer an existing chip and make more of them. Of course there's that whole copyright issue, but hey, China could simply nationalize Intel's rights to the design. Intel could protest, but it's not like the US is going to do anything about it. I mean is the US is going to stand by while a country oppresses it citizens (Falun Gong, and the Great Firewall, one child policy), invades it's neighbors (Tibet and Hong Kong to some degree), damages our property and holds our citizens hostage (April 2001 surveillance plane), what makes anyone think that the US is going get mad at China over Intel. In any event, after we cowed down to them over the WTO and most favored nation trade status, China should feel embolden to do what ever they want, which is after all what they have always done.
The Chinese people are an intelligent, rational people. Their government on the other hand is not. Any leader that has a need to march giant pictures of him self down the street has no respect for his people, and a very small diao. Any government that is not derived of the people has not legitimacy, that includes the direction that our United Police States of America is going.
Sorry about the rant...
Sure... and you think the US is free nowadays? I personally think that Mr Bush sees himself as emperor of the world, well at least he acts like it.
I can't help but wonder what the potential things that could go wrong with designing a CPU are, such as software incompatibilities etc.
If you are a dictator it does not matter. If somebody reports a bug that makes your country's chip look bad, lock'em up!
... to be the sole provider of CPU and controller circuitry in Chinese computers. The PRC will be able to build in Palladium-like identification abilities into every citizen's machine.
This effectively:
1. Boosts the Chinese economy by providing (probably "Palladium"-free versions of) CPUs and computers to other countries. Owning both the component design and manufacturing would place enormous pressure on competing economies.
2. Silence dissenting anti-PRC activity by having the widely understood ability to track Internet activity down to any Chinese citizen.
I think the point is that the US seems to have tried to forge their own path when it comes to cellular, rather than follow the rest of the world in some sort of standard that makes cellular service between other nations far more seamless and simple. Instead, we have at least 4 competing non-compatible technologies, only two of which have any compatability to the rest of the world.
That's the similarity they were pointing towards.