China Begins Production Of x86 Processors Based On AMD's IP (tomshardware.com)

Chinese-designed "Dhyana" x86 processors based on AMD's Zen microarchitecture are beginning to surface from Chinese chip producer Hygon. From a report: The processors come as the fruit of AMD's x86 IP licensing agreements with its China-based partners and break the decades-long stranglehold on x86 held by the triumvirate of Intel, AMD and VIA Technologies. Details are also emerging that outline how AMD has managed to stay within the boundaries of the x86 licensing agreements but still allow Chinese-controlled interests to design and sell processors based on the Zen design.

AMD's official statements indicate the company does not sell its final chip designs to its China-based partners. Instead, AMD allows them to design their own processors tailored for the Chinese server market. But the China-produced Hygon "Dhyana" processors are so similar to AMD's EPYC processors that Linux kernel developers have listed vendor IDs and family series numbers as the only difference. In fact, Linux maintainers have simply ported over the EPYC support codes to the Dhyana processor and note that they have successfully run the same patches on AMD's EPYC processors, implying there is little to no differentiation between the chips.

Comments

Re:More likely AMD is f'd

[Kjella]

They get 50% of the revenue from these chips, and they have the potential to get close to 100% marketshare in China once the Chinese government forces Chinese companies to use Chinese made processors.

Not how China rolls. Their typical pattern is:
1. Buy the full service product, the Chinese learn to use it.
2. Buy the product, the Chinese learn to operate/maintain it.
3. License the product, the Chinese learn to manufacture it.
4. Watch a Chinese clone take over your market.

Though the latter seems plausible though, anyone care to guess if those Chinese "special needs" are backdoors for the government? Then it would make sense that there's no user-visible changes...