China developing x86-compatible processor to rival Intel
By Nilay Patel 
posted Sep 4th 2008 2:24PM
posted Sep 4th 2008 2:24PM
While most of the products coming out of China are powered by Intel, AMD, and VIA chips, the Chinese government is investing heavily in a new chip called the Godson-3 in an effort to be "technologically independent." The Godson-3 is a third generation, quad-core design -- the project was started in 2001 -- and the goal is to use it to bring PCs to most Chinese citizens by 2010. Importantly, the 65nm Godson-3 will be x86 compatible through simulation, which means it'll be able to run Windows about 80 percent as fast as a comparable Intel chip -- although other Godson chips are already on the Chinese market in Linux-powered desktops and laptops under the name Loongson, or "dragon chip," they've been hampered by incompatibility with x86 software, so this should open things up significantly. We'll definitely be keeping an eye on this one -- hopefully it'll bring about more than just another flood of cheap netbooks.[Via Slashdot]
Go! China!
LOL, I guess I will stick with Intel and AMD for banking and online shopping ;-)
@Bobby
Yeah man. Make sure to keep that monster 80% efficienct chip for the high end stuff.
what is this? did china figure out a way to send electrodes through lead?
@Bobby: yes, because as we all know, the processor is what determines how safe our personal information is over the web.
Actually, chip design can affect web security.
@happy_penguin
I get it. You're "that guy."
To which guy are you referring? :)
To whowhatme
That's why China is going to have their own chips, rather than using foreign products.
Nobody wants to be Iraqi got bombed in the war by U.S. because the computer chip they got sent their secret info out.
A Chinese company developing a processor that will be in all Chinese home computers? Can you imagine the backdoors that the Chinese government would love to design into that? ...Especially if US or European companies started adopting it. It will make our fears of one day not being able to rip a Blu-Ray or download non-DRMed music laughably superficial.
The chances of these being rolled out beyond China are very low, considering they probably come with their own motherboard/ram requirements and the performance would probably not even rival AMD let alone Intel.
Yeah yeah... I see dead people EVERY day....
You do realize that most of the censorship in China is easily bypassed. It's setup in a way to be a passive system where it does just enough so only those truly willing to get the information will do so. They realize that it's a cat and mouse game so they took the step to go in the middle.
And I bet you didn't know that most newspapers are censored by themselves!? It's more over fear of being detained, canned, never being able to get a job again and such than an actual censor brigade going around and censoring everything. Don't believe everything you read on the internet or news. Instead pick up a great book called "Out of Mao's Shadow" or better yet go visit the great country!
/end rant
@Brett: I think the fear of being jailed/never being hired for another job, ever, is a pretty good method of censorship. Regardless of the semantics, what they are doing IS censorship, it's just one step removed from the actual content.
Oh what's this a little note in the bios:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
@Brett
"And I bet you didn't know that most newspapers are censored by themselves!? It's more over fear of being detained, canned, never being able to get a job again and such"
Oh, thank god, it's just that (those darned Chinese, always fearful). For a moment I thought it was censorship what we we're talking about! Thanks for getting that straight.
Where would they ever get this silly notion that they might be "detained, canned, never being able to get a job again". Oh yeah, it happens all the time if they step out of line.
It sure seems like a great country.
It is odd how China is trying to become more independent and we are becoming more dependent. For all the bashing the Chinese Gov't gets I have to admit that they are a hell of a lot smarter then ours.
And by odd I mean sad.
Smarter than the Bush Administration? The Chinese have been planning this for about half a Century pal.
Anyway, the Chinese have a policy of 50/50 sharing any foriegn investment.
As such, where do you think they got their inspiration for the Intel style chips?
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2002/08/07/intel-to-start-fab-plant-in-china
i'll believe they're more independent when there stops being a 1000:1 ratio of fake nike factories to real ones. i guess they don't mean independently creative, buut good at foraging for materials to make the knockoffs, i suppose.
this is most definitely some spy-related bs. if the US is borrowing money from China, it makes the obvious point that they're stinkin' rich. i have a feeling they're less concerned with conserving a few million bucks making their own chips and more interested in sending little bits of data directly to the cpu.
They end the 50/50 a couple years ago.
china should sick to making bobble heads, cd costers and Olympic opening ceremonies. china = Cheap products. Japan = tech(&sexy women)
then please return your refrigerator, AC, oven, iPhone, and laptop. Oh, and stop hitting on our women.
I suggest you actually visit both countries. You will find that in the end, concerning living, interacting with people and having fun, China is an infinitely more free country than Japan.
Jet, I voted you down because you should've said:
"I suggest you actually visit both countries. You will find that in the end, [ALL the women are hot.]"
Instead you wrote something ignorant about China being free.
Well, that's what greedy corporations get when they decide to have Chinese companies manufacture their products. I have nothing against the Chinese. But, this cloning practice is well deserved for companies that decide to have their products manufactured in a nation that has no interest in respecting intellectual property, domestic or foreign.
What the hell are you talking about? This chip has been in design since 2001, which would suggest that they actually worked from scratch unless they have difficulties copying designs which they regularly manufacture...
juxtah,
They in no way work on this from scratch.
The Chinese are taking foreign investments an turning them into a way to shield out for sales.
The Chinese can position themselves to never import AMD, Intel, or any other chip. Before China starting manufacturing processors, Taiwan was a major producer outside of the US. Taiwan = enemy of Communist Chinese Government.
designing the core x86 chip from scratch isn't that hard. anyone with an computer engineering degree can replicate it using verilog on an fpga chip. i was a computer science major and i think i could do it given the time. i designed a 4 bit processor in class and i know how the x86 works. that's pretty much public knowledge now. it's the cache, pipeline, sse instructions and extras that's not. the fact that it's only 80 percent compatible tells me it's not stolen.
So by copying designs they have been handed to manufacture they only achieved simulated x86 and 80% compatibility? Yeah right...
Actually, China doesn't do any of the semiconductor fabrication or design for any of the major CPU vendors that I know of. VIA is Taiwanese, and as much as our government likes to avoid World War III by publicly touting a "One China" policy, Taiwan is an independent and sovereign nation for all intents and purposes. Even then, Via makes their C7s in the same upstate New York IBM Fab facility that makes the Wii's CPUs.
If there's one area where the US is still on top, it's semiconductor development. Asia may lead us in flat panel technology or e-ink, or other electronics innovations. But when it comes to silicon, we still dominate.
Making an x86-compatible chip is one thing. Making it MMX and SSE3/SSE4 compatible is quite another. And if you not the article, it says "using simulation," which means it won't actually be fully-x86 compatible. And as much as people like to congratulate China for developing a chip architecture on their own, the Godson is a shameless MIPS clone and is binary compatible with most MIPS-compiled code. This means you could theoretically run SGI Irix on one of these Chinese computers, or do Nintendo 64 development work.
China pushes out a lot of engineers. They have the manpower to work from scratch.
To Markarian
Please find the definition of "Nation" and tell us where you can find a "nation" called Taiwan in the country list of UN.
How much do you know China? Have you been to there? Living there? Talked to people around? Or you just get everything you think it is the fact from the media which some people wrote with their own opinion and do not need to take any responsibility?
Godson-3? I didn't know Jesus had 2 brothers... See you can get some edgeyamacation at Engadget U ;^)...
I prefer Spaceman 3.
*Spacemen 3
oh, nm...
Catholic Much?
Jesus had two or four (Half :-) ) brothers according to the protestant translations of matthew.
James and Joses. And maybe Simon, and Judas.
Not God Sons though.
I hope they can solve the "imcompatibility" problems.
I was gonna say.. I think the article's language used is imcompatible with the rest of human kind
The government is pushing things like TD-SCDMA(no one like it) and WAPI(no device available) to the market and forbid the WiFi(Shit!!!) now. I think they would prefer to destroy the x86 also.
As a little addition to my first example, all voting rights would immediately be withdrawn and the people ignored,
What is it with China and coming up with their own standards? (Or any communist country for that matter)
What's with everyone thinking China are communist?
@ Juxtah,
ummm, because it is? is this a trick question?
"Today, mainland China is administered by the People's Republic of China—a one-party state under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China
jux is the full-time contrarian here
I think what Jux means is that while China is still ruled by a one-party system and still calls itself a "Communist Party" and a "People's Republic," for all intents and purposes, the economy has moved over to a capitalist system under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping. Private property is certainly allowed. And while many corporations are government sponsored (as are also in the United States through tax-breaks and research grants), they are usually privately owned and operated. In fact, in many ways, China is a more free-market economy than the US. Because of the rapid rate in which China switched over to a open market system, the regulation of the market has not had the time to develop as it has in the US, making for a less-regulated economy as compared to the United States (which has its own problems).
In a way, you could say that China is a more "capitalist" state than the USA, even though everyone here still thinks that it's some "Evil Communist Power." It appalls me that many in the United States have a hostile stance to what they see as their next big rival yet choose to remain ignorant of what China is like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China#Macroeconomic_trends
China has adopted capitalism long time ago, but the government is still a dictatorship
tough to be more free-market than the U.S. when your currency is effectively pegged to the U.S. dollar isn't it?
It appalls me that you find people who think China is communist as appalling.
So if I declare a democracy, murder lots of people and censor everything I'm still a democracy?
No, China isn't communist, communism is the fair and equal treatment of everyone, which as you may have noticed is not how China operates. They say communist because believe it or not it gets a better reception then totalitarian dictatorship. If you say you are one thing, and blatantly ignore everything about what you say you are, does that still make you one?
And since we're quoting wiki
"Communism is a socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership of the means of production and property in general"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist
As you may have noticed, China isn't exactly the above which means they are not Communist.
What's wrong with Microsoft having their own standards for browser, file format etc?
Doesn't anyone proof-read this stuff?
They released their first one two years ago and it was a REMARKED AMD Chip.
Compatible via simulation? Seriously? What do they mean by that?
Isn't every computer/cpu almost by definition (universal turing machine)?
Developing?!?!
How about reverse engineering and mass producing...
Only 80% compatible
Reverse engineering ? I don't think so.
That's what I forsee. That's another step toward China's supremacy. I predict a 3rd world war and the USA and China will be in the center of it.
I wonder how many patents they'll violate.
I'm just say'n
Funny how people on the Left, who wet their diapers over supposed American freedom infractions, are all ready to brown-nose China.
If you think China's so great, go live there.
The China Supremacy -- starring Maaatt Daaaamon
The "x86 incompatibility"?
Pretty much only two things which are x86 dependent in Linux are Adobe Flash (it has only x86 and x64 Linux builds) and Sun's Java (Sun allowed to port Java to x86 Linux only).
Pretty much nothing else comes to mind.
P.S. Drivers - China, as a major producer of electronics, can pick hardware which is Linux compatible. Shouldn't be a problem at all.
development their own? hahaha. It's not like they respect the intellectual property of anyone! They should just comandeer an intel facility and steal all of the work.
If steal, it won't take 7years for China to make something.
So will the chip have a sticker saying "made in China"?
Does your AMD/Intel has a sticker says Not Made in USA?
Hmm..
Would be interesting to open that bad boy and look for signs of INTEL or AMD.....
I seriously doubt this will get out of the country any time soon - China has been developing their own supercomputers for their own banks and government departments, so this CPU will simply replace whatever is already in their supercomputers.
I suggest you read and stop making slanderous accusation.
"In March 2007 STMicroelectronics bought a licence from MIPS Technologies Inc. and announced a partnership wherein STMicro will manufacture and distribute Godson-family processors."
"Unlike processors from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices or Via Technologies, the Godson-2E is not based on the x86 instruction set. Instead, the chip uses a modified version of the MIPS instruction set that replaces proprietary instructions with ones developed by ICT. This means the Godson 2E cannot be used in PCs running Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, and thus the computing devices based on the Godson 2E would be most likely running the Linux operating system."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godson
I am fed up seeing people accusing China all sort of things.
I just want to correct 2 tiny tiny mistakes:
First, that CPU series is called Loongson, not Godson, as you can see from the picture. It means dragon's son,which's the same as all Chinese claim to be.
Second, we Chinese call our social system Socialism. Communism was the ultimate goal of China in Chairman Mao's era, yea, that's correct. However, in 1982, Chinese government introduced "building socialism with Chinese characteristics" as its governing orientation. That's the beginning of Deng Xiaoping's era.
You guys like wiki huh? Check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
I personally hate Loongson, because it grows so sO SO slow. But I don't want to see our Chinese forces using other states' CPU or OS. No, thank you.
"x86-compatible processor"
Can you say trace by trace copy?
To those who keep making ridiculous slanderous accusation.
If the Godson tech was stolen from Intel then why the Hell does it have to take so many years to bring it out ? Can't it just take a year or even months ?
Please people , before making silly accusation, at least make some judgement and reasoning.
please stop talking about judgement and reasoning with us americans, we dont give a shit about things we dont know shit about, like china and russia, we hate them because they are commies; and i'm gonna boycott chinese stuff like this chip because we want a free ta...tibat (is that what that darn place is called?)...or something like that ok, dont even ask me where that tibat thing is, i only know where mexico is, so take that china!
Oh, i heard that russia just invaded georgia, hell i living in georgia, how dare them russians step on our soil, I'm gonna grab my shotgun and go kill some russians, oh wait, what color are the russians again?
man, if only i can digg engadget's comments......
It will be a kind of trouble to find a piece of cloth to put on then.
A CPU from China? Make sure to double check it's not just some plastic with pins...Let's not forget all the fake memory chip / poisoned dumplings / haagen-dazs made in toilets...
haggen-dazs made in toilets? get the fudge out! i made that a couple times after eatting icecream while having a stomach problems, damn chinese is ripping me off again!
No international patents could possibly have been violated in the development of this processor.
to hanxiao,
"How much do you know TAIWAN? Have you been to there? Living there? "
just copy and paste.
Probably the US government has much more low profile ways of breaking their own privacy laws than hacking a CPU ... it's still very hard to encrypt your Windows or Linux PC in a CIA-proof way ... why do you think that is? ... I hear no one complaining about that ...
You have to realize that limiting privacy opens up your PC to Intelligence Agencies abroad and Crime Syndicates just as well ...
Nothing new there ...
China is the second largest exporter of goods in the world ... after Germany .... not after the US ...
Chips designed in the US are mostly made in Asia for over a decade already. Also hightech. And yes ... you can also get low priced trash if you want ... they make t all ... if you buy it.
Quality is giving people what they expect. That's what China does. And the US doesn't. That's why US industrial production declines and China production grows.
US firms have moved their own production to China. That's not some a communist plot. It's market economy.
Evolve or live with it.