matsch's blog

Loongson CPU

The People's Republic of China, namely the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has longtime developed their own CPU under the codename Godson or Loongson [2]. The first reports about these developments started in 2001 with the then called Fangzhou-1 processor [9].

The reason behind China's research in this field is mainly to become independent from foreign hardware manufacturers, which actually produce in China or Taiwan but none of this technology is owned by the country.

The economic powerhouse has long been dependent on expensive foreign microprocessors, which make up one of the few remaining areas the US' boasts an unarguable technology lead over Asian rivals. [6]

Recently, in September 2006, the newest version of the chip called Godson 2E or Longxin IIE was announced. It is a 64-bit MIPS III RISC processor designed to run at 1GHz and developed by the CAS. The performance was said to be equally to the Intel Pentium IV but with a much lower power consumption between 3 to 8 watts. The processor is 95% MIPS-compatible but is said not to use patented MIPS instructions and thus not to violating Intellectual Property regulations. Due to the fact that it is not based on the x86 architecture, Windows operating system will not run on the CPU and thus Linux and other UNIX's can be used.

What is quite interesting about the project is the speed of the development by the Chinese researchers.

On November 13, 2006, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), Li Guojie announced to the public that "Godson 2E is ready for mass production. Li Guojie told the public that from Godson 1 to Godson 2B, the capability of the chip has tripled, and from Godson 2B to Godson 2C, from Godson 2C to Godson 2E, the capability has continuously tripled. On the average, the capability of Godson series chip doubles every year, four times of what Moore's law claims, and China should accumulate small successes into large success." [2]

Li Guojie also announced that at the end of 2006, scientists would start to upgrade Godson 2E to Godson 2F, which will improve performance by about 30% and power consumption reduced by about 50%. By 2008, Godson-3 is scheduled to enter production. [2]

Lemote Box

The newest development surrounding the Godson CPU is the so called Lemote Box or Fulong mini-PC [1], which entered production and is currently been shipped to 1000 test users. The Lemote Box is a 18 x 14 x 3.7cm small PC installed with the Godson 2E CPU running at 666MHz. The processor again works at only under 5-7W power (4.07W in a recent test) and the mini-PC uses laptop parts (i.e. memory and hard disk drive) and thus overall power consumption is very low.

The company Lemote produced only 1000 boxes for shipping, but in the first week after the announcement more than a 1000 orders came in. It is sold at CNY 1,599 (around 160 EUR / 200 USD) per unit excluding the monitor, keyboard and mouse. Now with this boxes they encourage users to take part in the software development (mainly porting the OS and application software) and thus shipped the boxes to customers by their technical background.

"We wish all users carry forward the spirit of opensource community and we will appreciate any help." said by Lemote official.

They have a website and a BBS forum. The system shipped is either Debian GNU/Linux or some new-born Linux distribution called "OpenRays". There is a fairly long video showing the box running Debian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UvoBf3hFCk

I don't know if their hardware development is somehow open source (since it's mainly a state-funded research project), but I do hope they can catch up and build an alternative to the AMDs and Intel's out there... China is the country, which maybe can do something against all the Intellectual Property craziness in the rest of the world. They are kind of on the verge of laying their path.

(Via: Virtual China)

Links:

• [1] My CPU Is Loongson(Godson)!!! blog
• [2] Godson/Loongson @ Wikipedia
• [3] 14.09.2006 - Reg Hardware (The Register): China's sub-£100 PC launches
• [4] 18.08.2006 - heise online: China plant Superrechner mit heimischen Prozessoren [de]
• [5] 17.03.2006 - heise online: Linux-Laptops fürs chinesische Hinterland [de]
• [6] 25.07.2005 - The Register: China's chip gaining GHz quickly - report
• [7] 11.12.2003 - heise online: AMD eröffnet in China Entwicklungszentrum für Thin Clients [de]
• [8] 07.03.2003 - heise online: 64-Bit-Prozessor aus China [de]
• [9] 15.07.2001 - heise online: Chinas erster 32-Bit-Prozessor [de]

Update: Glyn Moody from the Open... blog points out two reasons, why this news is interesting.

First, because the chip was designed and made entirely in China, making the country independent of Western chipmakers; and secondly, because as a non-standard chip architecture, the new chip can't run Windows. Which, means, almost inevitably, that it runs GNU/Linux. If China wants to be truly independent, free software is the quickest and easiest way to do it.