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

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the aggressive-expansion dept.

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.

27 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Triumvirate?! by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does Via Technologies still exist?

    I guess the bigger question is really if x86 should be the basis for a new processor initiative from China.

    1. Re:Triumvirate?! by TeknoHog · · Score: 3, Informative

      As for Via, no idea, but that would raise the question of who inherited the Cyrix/Centaur IP

      FTFY. It seems they continue to sell their CPUs, though these designs and processes don't look exactly new. https://www.viatech.com/en/sil...

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re:Triumvirate?! by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      bigger question is really if x86 should be the basis for a new processor initiative

      China may be hedging its bets by investing in both kinds of CPUs: x86 and ARM.

      Some argue x86 is dying, but x86 has more server-centric features than ARM, and is thus is still popular for server farms. (At least the x86 server features are more mature.)

      I wonder if GPU's will overtake both of these, or at least push x86 and ARM into being mostly coordinators. Perhaps the market will shift to specialized chip-sets for AI, databases, graphics, etc., and x86 or ARM will mostly function as process coordinators which dish out specific tasks to specialized CPUs.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    3. Re:Triumvirate?! by Mr.Radar · · Score: 2

      Yes, and they're partnering with Chinese firm Zhaoxin to design a new x86 CPU microarchitecture.

      --
      What if this signature were clever?
    4. Re:Triumvirate?! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      x86 turned out to be good even though it's crap, at least for high performance applications.

      People thought that RISC was the way forward for performance, because you could make simpler hardware that would allow higher clock frequencies and more parallelism. But it turned out that you could use CISC instruction sets like x86 as an intermediate language that you recompiled on the fly, optimizing for each specific CPU and even the other threads executing in parallel in a way that no compiler ever could.

      So for performance x86 is great, even if it's not really what x86 CPUs actually execute internally. For power consumption RISC is much better, as we have seen with ARM.

      Of course all this is talking generally, for specific applications the answer might differ.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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  2. Re:China Finds Begins Production... by ArchieBunker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just business as usual at Slashdot. Incoherent summaries and easily spotted typos. On a side note does that mean I can buy these knockoff processors from Alibaba for a fraction of AMD's prices?

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  3. Do they need Intel? by unixisc · · Score: 2

    Two questions arise: if they have licensed AMD's Zen architecture, does that allow them to support Intel's x32, which is the cross licensing exclusive that Intel and AMD have (or at least had), which allowed Intel to use AMD64 and AMD to use IA32? Or have we come to the point where it's no longer necessary to support 32-bit in x64?

    As for AMD, this is the only way they can gain any significant marketshare anywhere - by taking their China partners and selling into China. In fact, those Chinese partners might as well acquire AMD directly, and make it all their own.

    1. Re:Do they need Intel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      AMD holds a 51 percent stake in HMC... HMC owns the x86 IP and ends up producing the chips, which satisfies the AMD and Intel x86 cross-licensing agreements because the IP remains with a company owned primarily by AMD. ... To stay within the legal boundaries, HMC licenses the IP to Hygon, which designs the x86 chips and then sells the design back to HMC. HMC then employs a foundry to fab the end product (likely China Foundries or TSMC). Confusingly, HMC then transfers the chips back to Hygon (the same company that designed them), which then sells the Dhyana processors. ... According to the agreement, the final products can only be sold within China's borders.

    2. Re:Do they need Intel? by DMJC · · Score: 2

      IA-32 Patents have all expired, shouldn't be anything holding back using it.

  4. More likely AMD is f'd by drnb · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Intel is fucked as they not even ok for china to copy them.

    More likely AMD is f'd if they felt desperate enough to engage in this short term benefit deal with long term negative consequences.

    1. Re:More likely AMD is f'd by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:More likely AMD is f'd by drnb · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      AMD owns 51% of HMC, a "front" company that exists to work around Intel/AMD IP agreements.
      AMD owns 30% of Hygon, the "real" company in this deal, well sort of "real", more below.

      AMD will likely see very little profit from HMC as HMC will likely sell the finished chips to Hygon at or near cost.

      OK, so AMD still has 30% of Hygon? Yes in theory, but Hygon will likely not be designed to capture much of the revenue of the domestic x86 trade. Hygon will likely subcontract to 100% Chinese owned companies where some of the real profits will be realized, and will likely sell the CPUs to 100% Chinese owned companies at a low price and these companies will capture much of the remaining profits. Maybe not in year 1 but by year 5 the preceding eco system will likely be complete.

      In short the accounting will be engineered to avoid having to pay AMD very much, as we see with US companies engineering the accounting to avoid paying US taxes.

      And the sad part is that AMD is smart enough to see it coming. But desperation leads them to maybe a few years of some revenue, hoping that it will be the bridge they need to return to full health.

    3. Re:More likely AMD is f'd by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 2

      Yea they get of 50% of the 'reported' revenue. Slowly more and more will be made off hours and sold on the grey market. Eventually you will find chinese parts being passed as genuine AMD on ebay, etc. In the end this won't work, and AMD will suffer.

    4. Re: More likely AMD is f'd by Type44Q · · Score: 2

      Though the latter seems plausible though, anyone care to guess if those Chinese "special needs" are

      The diameter of the backdoor was reduced for maximum pleasure.

    5. Re:More likely AMD is f'd by hackingbear · · Score: 2

      1. the Chinese companies will still be paying royalties / patent fees as long the contract applies
      2. if the Chinese partner violating the contract, the foreign partner can sue them in Chinese court and the Chinese court system has shown favorable ruling to foreign IP/patent holders
      3. if the Chinese company clone the interface design, then it is all legal and ethical since interface design is not copyrightable/patentable, just like Linux and BSD cloned the Unix API
      4. western companies are doing the same all the time to each other, with and without licensing

      Why is this not legal or ethical when done by Chinese? And that why do western companies file so many garbage patents and troll everybody including the Chinese?

      Answer: Hypocrisy

    6. Re:More likely AMD is f'd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I doubt AMD's lawyers are so dumb that they wouldn't license the product in such a way, that they get paid per each chip manufactured and sold. Therefore it doesn't matter what profit Hygon makes on the product. There may be issues with Hygon falsifying ledgers on the quantity of chips made, but so long as AMD actually has access to the factories, they should be able to figure out if they are getting cheated, and take their partners to court.

      AMD also if they had a good lawyer would have made sure that only certain foundries could produce the chips. As much as people say that IP laws don't work in China, they are clearly wrong. If you have a good contract, a Chinese court will find for the plaintiff. Most of the people who got screwed had crappy contracts, and didn't even get a Chinese lawyer to look over the contract and do due diligence.

  5. Re:Sorry, learn me some English, please by Daetrin · · Score: 4, Informative

    Congratulations! Your English is great! Better than the headline in fact!

    It looks like they copied the headline from the source article but bizarrely omitted one word and a piece of punctuation making the whole thing unintelligible. The actual title should be:

    "China Finds Zen: Begins Production Of x86 Processors Based On AMD's IP"

    Which is kind of a dumb pun based on the fact that they're copying AMD's Zen microarchitecture.

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    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  6. Methinks this is not a good idea by TimMD909 · · Score: 2

    Once China gets good enough on their own to fab the chips without AMDs help, I don't see good things for AMD. Maybe they'll get sued, or attacked politically, or simply stop receiving payments for their IP use. China has always been #1 in the world at stealing others' hard work.

  7. Until they don't by raymorris · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Many US companies have partnered with Chinese companies and it works great for a couple of years, until the Chinese company no longer needs anything from the US company. Once they get all the information they need, they have no reason to send any payments, or anything else, to the US company.

    1. Re:Until they don't by drew_kime · · Score: 2

      Are they going to spin off and begin creating x86 compatible processors, completely neglecting patents?

      Yes, and what are you going to do to stop them?

      A single change and your x86 software becomes a buggy mess, I'd like to see them try to copy it.

      China made 90.6% of all PCs produced in 2011. (Most recent number I could find in a quick search.) If your software doesn't work on them, who has more incentive to "fix" it?

      --
      Nope, no sig
    2. Re:Until they don't by Luthair · · Score: 2

      China made 90.6% of all PCs produced in 2011 [theatlantic.com]. (Most recent number I could find in a quick search.) If your software doesn't work on them, who has more incentive to "fix" it?

      Largely for non-Chinese companies exported. While Chinese companies may be able to get away domestically with using stolen IP they won't be able to export infringing products to the west.

    3. Re:Until they don't by willy_me · · Score: 2

      For IP that is not changing, you are correct. But so long as AMD continues to design new processors, any partners in China will continue to abide by whatever contract they have negotiated. To violate the contract would put the company at risk of losing access to future designs. This is a "goose that laid the golden egg" type scenario. If anything, the fact that they never bothered to make any changes to the CPU design is a good sign for AMD.

      It was a good move by AMD because it will guarantee them a much larger market share in China. Most notably, it will help them win government / military contracts which require proof / verification that all components are secure and free of backdoors. Local Chinese companies have a huge advantage in this respect.

    4. Re:Until they don't by drnb · · Score: 2

      Are they going to spin off and begin creating x86 compatible processors, completely neglecting patents?

      The AMD controlled company has already licensed the IP to the non-AMD controlled company. The non-AMD controlled company is also doing all the CPU design work. The AMD controlled company is just a front for compliance with the Intel/AMD agreement. It designs nothing, it sells nothing to the market, all that is done by the non-AMD controlled company. Again, a non-AMD controlled company that has a valid IP license according to Chinese law.

  8. Re: What "server-centric features"? Mfg elsewhere? by saloomy · · Score: 2

    When it comes to Xeon, the various cache levels are higher per core.

    Also you can expand the system to dual, 4x or 8x processor packages, allocate way more memory, have more PCIe lanes to drive high volume IO, etc etc.... Though those aren't all x86, just the server side, which is why they dominate there.

  9. Re:Sorry, learn me some English, please by nitehawk214 · · Score: 2

    Don't worry, English isn't the native language of msmash, either.

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  10. Re:China Finds Begins Production... by ArchieBunker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't care what intelligence the Chinese government collects on me. Uncle Sam is a different story.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  11. Re:China will not sit idly on Zen architecture by Tsolias · · Score: 2

    That's not what happens with digital design.
    When you get IPs, you almost never get the source code to build the circuits.
    Everyone who has at least worked on FPGAs can confirm that there are vendor locked IP cores, that are just a ciphertext that gets decrypted on the fly when the design is synthesized.

    Even if you could have the source code of zen, it's nearly impossible to build the asic because there's a shitload of proprietary IPs after you've obtained the code and custom AMD programs that do place and route on the design.

    If CPU manufacturing was easy, the Chinese could have been building Arm CPUs en masse without and licenses, but they couldn't because 1st you need the know how from the company from start to finish to build the CPU, and 2nd no fab will ever accept your design in any respectable amount of wafers, without AMD or Arm or anyone else jumps in and stops the procedure.

    You can't copy and build CPUs so easily.