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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.
I'm not so amazed by China's progression. 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. Once more of China's IC designers decide to stay in China instead of emigrating to the USA and Canada, we've got Trouble.
Also, once an architecture has been out for a while, there is a lot of information available which can be used to redesign it. Lastly, while 260 MHz was pushing the technology in 1997, it isn't that big a deal in 2002. Does anyone know what feature size the chip is fabbed in?
I think we'll start seeing all sorts of systems in the 10^2 to 10^3Mhz range over the next year or two. VIA in particular have some interesting products with their fanless C3 processors which operate at 500Mhz - plenty for most applications, and the Eden platform. People will be more interested in smaller systems which are quieter, cheaper, and which use less power. And when you can run things like Linux or Lindows you start seeing things like the Walmart PCs, which I figure is pretty much what they're after. Of course VIA aren't the only ones in this area, although I am more interested in supporting them (and Transmeta) than a certain other chip manufacturer with a virtual monopoly.
they used to make "Poisk" ("Search") computers based on chips that were manfucatured in, I beleive, Kiev, Ukraine. The processor was a rip off of the Intel's 8086 chip. Then, I beleive, they managed to rip off 286. We had a bunch of these in our school. They were quite compatible. I've even heard reports of Windows 3.11 almost working on them. Many DOS programs worked just fine (I remember Computer Associates' SuperCalc working quite well). Almost all games failed to work though. I beleive we traced it down to the io port 0x60 not being the keyboard port (I don't know if that's a processor or AT architecture feature).
Unfortunately they never succeeded in making a Soviet verion of the 80386 processor. Now I've heard to stories which claim the reason of the failure. The first one says that in order to reproduce 80286 they just took really thin slices of the Intel's processors and reversed engineered them this way. In order to prevent this, Intel started to print layers of 80386 processor in waves, not on straight planes and it was much harder to slice that without ruining the processor.
The second version says that poplar seeds were to blame: there is a lot of poplars in Kiev (that part is a fact) and when the time for poplar seeds comes, the air in the city is filled with it. They couldn't get it out of their manufacturing areas and had to shut it down.
I passed the Turing test.
...in the words of Public Enemy, "Can't Truss It."
Today 233 mHz. Tomorrow...well, 500 mHz or so. But chips are a strategic commodity, and they know they'll be toe-to-toe with the West as they emerge as a bona fide superpower rival. No need rely on the largesse of the US or Japan for microprocessors.
I wonder what they could build a bare-bones PC for, if CPUs were 25-cents or so?
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Don't worry about money, it's not an issue any more. International banks/investors already trust China enough to put more money in such uncoming projects. And Bush administration cannot control all of them. So, I expect to see more and more such projects in news.
If I had to design a new CPU, I'd think it be of worth to try and work with asynchronous logic. If the technology for asynchronous CPUs developed far enough, we'd be much better for it.
Of course, realistically in their position I'd never want to try. This is not for academia.
(Post script: IANAEE [electrical engineer]).
---Lailyx
"I've got an ace up my sleeve...I just have to rememeber which pocket I put it in"
Buy a history book, the Great Leap forward was not about showig the west what they could do. It was an attempt to move their country out of a subsistence agricultural situation. The aim was technical improvement, not dick-waving. I'm not saying your point is wrong; I think it is a mixutre of trust, dependance on Western technology, we can too and other reasons. The "Great Leap Foward" does not aid your thesis though.
If Washington were to impose a boycott on China, or export restrictions on certain technology, they would not be able to buy new CPU's. This could harm a rapidly growing economy more than it would harm the military.
Its not really relevant that Washington would probably never do that, what is relevant is that they could. During the cold war, export of advanced technology to communist countries was tightly controlled for example. It has happened before.
It is just like the question why China felt the need to start their own space program when they could have their satelites put in orbit reliably and cheaply by the Russians. They didnt want to completely depend on that, nor did they want the Russians to always exactly know what the Chinese were putting in orbit and for what purpose.
There is probably also the ideological factor. Self sufficiency was always high on the list of ideological priorities for the ruling party. It has been one of the pillars of Maoist ideology no longer to depend on the former western colonial powers (yes, the USA too occupied parts of Chinese cities in the 19th century and used military power to advance business interests, just like the Europeans did). North Korea has taken this to extreme levels for example, it resembles a Theocracy more than a mere communist dictatorship. Ideological, rather than rational motivations are not always entirely logical. This is no different with our own western liberal ideology.
"the potential things that could go wrong with designing a CPU are, such as software incompatibilities"
In the free market that would be a valid concern. China is not a free market.
If you have a processor that is incompatible with everyone else you do have to develop your own software to go with it. True. But you also prevent the dependence upon western software. In a place like China they can force that issue.
That helps them keep the west out. In a communist society (yes folks they are communist and yes, that does run counter to the way we live) they view that as a good thing.
When these processors are used in thier defensive and offensive military systems, and THEY WILL BE USED THAT WAY, it will be that much harder for us to counter them. There will be a new niche in the west for geeks who understand the Dragon so that we understand their exact capabilities and combat them.
So software incompatibilities could work for them rather than against.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.