https://www.hpcwire.com/2023/07/19/how-china-is-building-an-open-national-chip-plan-around-risc-v/ * Search the site [ ] Go Tabor Network: * [d] Datanami * [e] EnterpriseAI * [hpcwj_favi] HPCwire Japan * # QCwire * # HPC & AI Wall Street Toggle navigation [hpcwire_lo] Search the site [ ] Go Since 1987 - Covering the Fastest Computers in the World and the People Who Run Them Since 1987 - Covering the Fastest Computers in the World and the People Who Run Them * Home * Topics + Applications + Cloud + Developer Tools + Interconnects + Middleware + Networks + Processors + Quantum + Storage + Systems + Visualization * Sectors + Academia & Research + Entertainment + Financial Services + Government + Life Sciences + Manufacturing + Oil & Gas + Retail * QCwire Home * QCwire Subscribe * Exascale * Specials + LIVEwire Interviews + SC o 2022 o 2021 o 2020 o 2019 o 2018 o 2017 o 2016 o 2015 o 2014 o 2013 o 2012 o 2011 o 2010 o 2009 o 2008 + ISC o 2023 o 2022 o 2021 o 2020 o 2019 o 2018 o 2017 o 2016 o 2015 o 2014 o 2013 o 2012 o 2011 o 2010 o 2009 o 2008 + People to Watch o 2023 o 2022 o 2021 o 2020 o 2019 o 2018 o 2017 o 2016 o 2015 o 2014 o 2013 o 2012 o 2011 o 2010 + Readers' Choice Awards o 2023 o 2022 o 2021 o 2020 o 2019 o 2018 o 2017 o 2016 o 2015 o 2014 o 2013 o 2012 o 2011 o 2010 + HPC + AI Wall Street o 2018 o 2009 o 2008 + Advanced Scale Forum * Resource Library * Podcast * Events + Events + Advanced Scale Forum + HPC + AI Wall Street o 2022 Digital Event Series * Solution Channels + AWS * Job Bank * About + About HPCwire + Organizations and Affiliations + Customer Testimonials + HPCwire Editorial Submissions + Subscribe + HPCwire Custom Reprints + Contact Us * Subscribe Readers' Choice Awards 2023 [Quantum-Mo] How China is Building an Open National Chip Plan Around RISC-V By Agam Shah July 19, 2023 It is becoming clearer that China's plan to cut reliance on Western chip technology revolves around homegrown chips built using the open RISC-V architecture, which is also gaining popularity in the Europe and U.S. China has for years has talked about moving its chip strategy in the direction of RISC-V, which is a free-to-license API blueprint to build chips, but no serious action was taken. Previous efforts to make sovereign chips around alternative architectures went nowhere. But this year the China government has finally shown seriousness about funding RISC-V initiatives. The Chinese government's sudden interest in RISC-V came overnight, and that was a surprise to academic Yungang Bao, who is the deputy director of information and communications technologies at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). "This year, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Science Foundation China are already inviting proposals for RISC-V related research. This is quite a substantial change," Yungang said during a presentation at the RISC-V Summit held last month in Barcelona. In 2012, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed to merge all kinds of chip architecture blueprints being used in the country into a unified design. Those architectures included x86, MIPS, PowerPC, Alpha, and SPARC. [RISC-V-logo-450x-300x69]But it became difficult to reach a consensus on how to merge these instruction-set architectures, Yungang said. "RISC-V provides an excellent answer," Yungang said. RISC-V, which is free and open-source, provides a faster and cheaper alternative to design and manufacture chips without relying on Western technologies. "Over the past years most RISC-V related work was done, kind of, bottom-up. Today the Minister of Science and Technology is ... already paying attention to RISC-V. More universities use RISC-V for teaching, for example. There is already ... a textbook based on RISC-V now," Yungang said. In some areas, the U.S. has restricted semiconductors in trade and policy and tightened certain Western AI chip and CPU exports to Chinese organizations. That has forced China to look internally for technologies to develop chips, and RISC-V is emerging as a top option. RISC-V research and development started in 2015 mostly at the academic and startup levels but is now rapidly maturing. RISC-V is considered an open technology, much like Linux. The base architecture can be licensed for free and then can be modified by Chinese companies to meet their needs. The most common commercial alternatives are either to use the widespread x86 architecture, that can only be purchased in manufactured form, or to purchase a licensed design for ARM architectures. "Instructions should be free. That's a totally different mindset." Yungang said, adding that "many Chinese companies adopt this mindset widely." RISC-V development is managed by RISC-V International, which is a neutral organization and has declared the chip architecture as border-less technology. China has had many setbacks in building its homegrown chip ecosystem. The Chinese government has been defrauded to invest billions of dollars in non-existent chip factors, and internally developed chip architectures such as Loongson, which is reportedly a mishmash of RISC-V and MIPS architectures and has not been widely adopted. China's efforts mirror attempts in Europe to create a set of sovereign chips based on the RISC-V and reduce the reliance on companies like Intel and ARM for chips. The EU-funded European Processor Initiative is designing RISC-V chips for AI, supercomputers, automobiles, and other electronics. CAS is playing the long game to make RISC-V the default architecture in the China market. The grassroots effort is focused on drawing academic and startup interest in RISC-V. For example, CAS's goal is to introduce chip design based on RISC-V early in the education process. In 2019, the Chinese Academy of Sciences launched a countrywide initiative to promote RISC-V across China. The U.S. has placed the Chinese Academy of Sciences on an entity list due to its affiliation with the Chinese government. Chinese organizations also established the China RISC-V Alliance in 2018 to build out a full open-source chip ecosystem by 2030. About 70 Chinese companies are now members of RISC-V International, only behind the EU, which has 87 members, and the U.S., which has 77 members. The top 10 RISC-V startups in China have raised close to $1.18 billion in funding from venture capital firms, according to a slide in Yungang's presentation. CAS is working with top Chinese companies, including Alibaba, Tencent, and ZTE, to co-develop XiangShan-v3, which will match the performance of ARM's Neoverse-N2 server CPU design, which ARM announced in 2021. But Yungang acknowledged that there are performance gaps in some of those chips compared to the latest chips released by ARM. The most recent XiangShan-v2, for example, was slightly faster than ARM's Cortex-A76 smartphone CPU, which was announced in 2018. But the performance gap is closing as the RISC-V development and verification matures. Advanced GPUs and DPUs made using the 7-nm process will also be lined up for use with XiangShan CPU this year, according to a slide during Yungang's presentation. Chinese companies have already released many RISC-V boards. In 2023, Sophon released a 64-core RISC-V CPU, and other companies that include StarFive and Allwinner have RISC-V CPU designs and boards that can be purchased through Chinese retail sites. The RISC-V ecosystem in China is built on the open-source ethos, with the community working together to improve designs and software. Yungang's long-term goal is to create a platform with full chip development platform with open-source chip designs, electronic design automation, and verification tools. "The open-source chip ecosystem can lower the barrier of chip development by saving time to market and the cost of IP, EDA tools, and engineers." Yungang said. The platform will also automate chip design, so processors for various applications can be released quickly. "Over ninety percent of the code provided by the platform can be easily reused. And then the customized design only needs ... less than 10% of code." Yungang said. Another initiative called "One Chip One Student" (OSOC) teaches undergraduate students how to design RISC-V chips. In 2019, five undergraduate students in the OSOC program could design a RISC-V processor in four months. The Linux-compatible chip was taped out on the 110-nm process. The OSOC has been a considerable success since, with more than 4,000 undergraduate students participating in the program until this year. About 300 universities are participating in the initiative. U.S. semiconductor companies are facing an acute shortage of talent in the fast-growing semiconductor sector, due to the high education costs and low interest in engineering courses. A lot of RISC-V development in the U.S. is in the hands of the private sector and has faced many setbacks. Most notably, cash-strapped Intel pulled close to $1 billion in funding it had reserved to promote RISC-V development. Chinese institutions are currently developing open-source EDA tools to design RISC-V chips. Three tape-outs have been completed on the 110-nm and 28-nm nodes, but it is not viable for commercial use. "The performance, the PPA (power-performance-area) is still lower than the commercial EDA tools, but it works. And then next we will let the students use the open EDA tools to build their open-source chips," Yungang said. To some degree the U.S. government restrictions have stifled China's semiconductor ecosystem by blocking access to some EDA tools for advanced chips. But Yungang repeated that China's RISC-V efforts are borderless and can be adopted by anyone in the world. "Everyone can access the XiangShan project from GitHub. It already has ... more than 400 forks," Yungang said. Topics: Developer Tools, Hardware, Open Source Sectors: Academia & Research, Community, Government Tags: Alpha, CAS, EDA, MIPS, PowerPC, RISC-V, Sparc, X86, XiangShan Leading Solution Providers Adaptive Computing Altair AMD Ansys Arm Aspen Systems ASUS AWS Ayar Labs CIQ CoolIT Corehive Cornelis Networks DDN Dell Eviden HPE Inspur Intel Lenovo MemVerge Microsoft Motivair NEC Nvidia Panasas Penguin Solution PNY QCT Silicon Mechanics Sylabs TotalCAE * Off The Wire * Industry Headlines * August 22, 2023 * D-Wave Unveils Enhanced Algorithmic Updates to CQM Hybrid Solver in Leap Quantum Cloud Service * Altair SLC Now Available on Google Cloud Marketplace * NVIDIA Chief Scientist Bill Dally to Keynote at Hot Chips * Supermicro Unveils VMware vSAN Solution Powered by Intel AMX Accelerator * Cornelis Networks, Penguin Solutions and Panasas Announce Partnership for HPC Integration August 21, 2023 * NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center's New $35M System, Derecho, Paves Way for Advanced Climate Research * AMD Showcases Continued Enterprise Data Center Momentum with EPYC CPUs and Pensando DPUs * DOE Announces $70M in Research Training Opportunities for Students and Faculty from Historically Underrepresented Institutions * NCSA's SMM Software Tools Aim to Make Sense of Social Media Data August 18, 2023 * SDSC Showcases Several 'Computing for the Common Good' Projects at PEARC23 * IDC Forecasts Worldwide Quantum Computing Market to Grow to $7.6B in 2027 * Argonne National Laboratory Appoints NSF's Sean Jones as New Deputy Director for Science and Technology * AMD and AWS Introduce Advanced Amazon EC2 Instances, Supercharged with 4th Gen EPYC Processors * DOE Announces $16M for Research on AI/ML for Nuclear Physics Accelerators and Detectors * LUMI Drives Efficiency in Converting Handwritten Weather Records to Digital August 17, 2023 * DOE Announces $16M for Particle Accelerators for Science & Society * IonQ and BearingPoint Bring Quantum Consulting to the European Market * Argonne's Autonomous Discovery Initiatives: Merging AI and Robotics to Accelerate Science * Sandia and Duke University Collaborate on New Ion Trap to Boost Quantum Algorithms Research * DOE's SCGSR Program Offers Grad Students Research Opportunities at National Labs More Off The Wire x Off The Wire Industry Headlines More Off The Wire ISC 2023 Booth Videos Cornelis Networks @ Dell Technologies @ Intel @ ISC23 ISC23 ISC23 Lenovo @ ISC23 Microsoft @ ISC23 ISC23 Playlist Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update! Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week! * The Latest * Editor's Picks [figure_4-2-405x228] AMReX: A Performance-Portable Framework for Block-Structured Adaptive Mesh Refinement Applications August 21, 2023 Performance, portability, and broad functionality are all key features of the AMReX software framework, which was developed by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the National Renewable E Read more... DOE Software Report 2023 DOE Report on The Science of Scientific Software Development and Use August 21, 2023 Creating good scientific software is hard. Oftentimes, software developed to solve a specific problem in a particular area of research. Many projects often work on a critical path and can be fragile when used or adapted Read more... [Nvidia-Hopper-arch-H100-SXM_942x-405x228] Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year? August 17, 2023 The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its latest H100 GPUs worldwide in 2023. The appetite for GPUs is ob Read more... [chip-blue-orange_shutterstock-2125871318_1000x-405x228] Maximizing GPU Performance Amidst Today's Increasing Shortages August 16, 2023 The default method for accelerating Deep Learning projects is increasing the size of a GPU cluster. However, the cost is increasingly prohibitive. According to Andreessen Horowitz, many companies investing in AI 'spen Read more... [Google-Cloud-shutterstock-1621631572_600x-370x290-1] Google's New Supercomputing H3 VMs Are Faster, but GPUs Are Absent August 16, 2023 Google Cloud's new H3 virtual machine instances provide a big jump in performance thanks to a focus on network performance, but with restrictions: it only supports single threads, and no GPU options are available. T Read more... AWS Solution Channel Shutterstock 1915164097 New - Amazon EC2 Hpc7a Instances Powered by 4th Gen AMD EPYC Processors Optimized for High Performance Computing In January 2022, we launched Amazon EC2 Hpc6a instances for customers to efficiently run their compute-bound high performance computing (HPC) workloads on AWS with up to 65 percent better price performance over comparable x86-based compute-optimized instances. Read more... Visit the AWS Solution Channel Previous: * Improving NFL Player Health Using Machine Learning With AWS Batch * Deploying and Running HPC Applications on AWS Batch * Readily Accessible Quantum Computing Solutions and Professional Services Through AWS Marketplace [IonQ-Barium-Quantum-Computer-405x228] IonQ Says Reaching #AQ 64 will be a ChatGPT Moment for Quantum Computing August 15, 2023 Not many pure-play quantum computing start-ups have dared to go public. So far, the financial markets have tended to treat the newcomers unsparingly. One exception is IonQ, who along with D-Wave and Rigetti, reported qua Read more... [figure_4-2-405x228] AMReX: A Performance-Portable Framework for Block-Structured Adaptive Mesh Refinement Applications August 21, 2023 Performance, portability, and broad functionality are all key features of the AMReX software framework, which was developed by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley Read more... DOE Software Report 2023 DOE Report on The Science of Scientific Software Development and Use August 21, 2023 Creating good scientific software is hard. Oftentimes, software developed to solve a specific problem in a particular area of research. Many projects often work Read more... [Nvidia-Hopper-arch-H100-SXM_942x-405x228] Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year? August 17, 2023 The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more... [chip-blue-orange_shutterstock-2125871318_1000x-405x228] Maximizing GPU Performance Amidst Today's Increasing Shortages August 16, 2023 The default method for accelerating Deep Learning projects is increasing the size of a GPU cluster. However, the cost is increasingly prohibitive. According to Read more... [Google-Cloud-shutterstock-1621631572_600x-370x290-1] Google's New Supercomputing H3 VMs Are Faster, but GPUs Are Absent August 16, 2023 Google Cloud's new H3 virtual machine instances provide a big jump in performance thanks to a focus on network performance, but with restrictions: it only suppo Read more... [IonQ-Barium-Quantum-Computer-405x228] IonQ Says Reaching #AQ 64 will be a ChatGPT Moment for Quantum Computing August 15, 2023 Not many pure-play quantum computing start-ups have dared to go public. So far, the financial markets have tended to treat the newcomers unsparingly. One except Read more... [Intel-4th-Gen-Xeon-Sapphire-Rapids-graphic_584x-405x228] Intel Execs: AXP and AVX10 Will Have a Broad Impact on Application Performance August 14, 2023 Intel's newest under-the-hood improvement to boost chip performance, called APX and AVX10 (which is targeted more at HPC), sparked excitement among Read more... [GigaIO-main-405x228] GigaIO's New SuperNODE Takes-off with Record Breaking AMD GPU Performance August 10, 2023 The HPC users dream is to keep stuffing GPUs into a rack mount box and make everything go faster. Some servers offer up to eight GPUs, but the standard server u Read more... [HPCwire-lo] CORNELL I-WAY DEMONSTRATION PITS PARASITE AGAINST VICTIM October 6, 1995 Ithaca, NY --Visitors to this year's Supercomputing '95 (SC'95) conference will witness a life-and-death struggle between parasite and victim, using virtual Read more... [HPCwire-lo] SGI POWERS VIRTUAL OPERATING ROOM USED IN SURGEON TRAINING October 6, 1995 Surgery simulations to date have largely been created through the development of dedicated applications requiring considerable programming and computer graphi Read more... [HPCwire-lo] U.S. Will Relax Export Restrictions on Supercomputers October 6, 1995 New York, NY -- U.S. President Bill Clinton has announced that he will definitely relax restrictions on exports of high-performance computers, giving a boost Read more... [HPCwire-lo] Dutch HPC Center Will Have 20 GFlop, 76-Node SP2 Online by 1996 October 6, 1995 Amsterdam, the Netherlands -- SARA, (Stichting Academisch Rekencentrum Amsterdam), Academic Computing Services of Amsterdam recently announced that it has pur Read more... [HPCwire-lo] Cray Delivers J916 Compact Supercomputer to Solvay Chemical October 6, 1995 Eagan, Minn. -- Cray Research Inc. has delivered a Cray J916 low-cost compact supercomputer and Cray's UniChem client/server computational chemistry software Read more... [HPCwire-lo] NEC Laboratory Reviews First Year of Cooperative Projects October 6, 1995 Sankt Augustin, Germany -- NEC C&C (Computers and Communication) Research Laboratory at the GMD Technopark has wrapped up its first year of operation. Read more... [HPCwire-lo] Sun and Sybase Say SQL Server 11 Benchmarks at 4544.60 tpmC October 6, 1995 Mountain View, Calif. -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Sybase, Inc. recently announced the first benchmark results for SQL Server 11. The result represents a n Read more... [HPCwire-lo] New Study Says Parallel Processing Market Will Reach $14B in 1999 October 6, 1995 Mountain View, Calif. -- A study by the Palo Alto Management Group (PAMG) indicates the market for parallel processing systems will increase at more than 4 Read more... Leading Solution Providers Adaptive Computing Altair AMD Ansys Arm Aspen Systems ASUS AWS Ayar Labs CIQ CoolIT Corehive Cornelis Networks DDN Dell Eviden HPE Inspur Intel Lenovo MemVerge Microsoft Motivair NEC Nvidia Panasas Penguin Solution PNY QCT Silicon Mechanics Sylabs TotalCAE Contributors Tiffany Trader Tiffany Trader Editorial Director Douglas Eadline Douglas Eadline Managing Editor John Russell John Russell Senior Editor Jaime Hampton Jaime Hampton Contributing Editor Mariana Iriarte Mariana Iriarte Contributing Editor Alex Woodie Alex Woodie Contributing Editor Addison Snell Addison Snell Contributing Editor Drew Jolly Drew Jolly Editorial Assistant Click Here for More Headlines More Editor's Picks [HPCwire-lo] CORNELL I-WAY DEMONSTRATION PITS PARASITE AGAINST VICTIM October 6, 1995 Ithaca, NY --Visitors to this year's Supercomputing '95 (SC'95) conference will witness a life-and-death struggle between parasite and victim, using virtual Read more... [HPCwire-lo] SGI POWERS VIRTUAL OPERATING ROOM USED IN SURGEON TRAINING October 6, 1995 Surgery simulations to date have largely been created through the development of dedicated applications requiring considerable programming and computer graphi Read more... [HPCwire-lo] U.S. Will Relax Export Restrictions on Supercomputers October 6, 1995 New York, NY -- U.S. President Bill Clinton has announced that he will definitely relax restrictions on exports of high-performance computers, giving a boost Read more... [HPCwire-lo] Dutch HPC Center Will Have 20 GFlop, 76-Node SP2 Online by 1996 October 6, 1995 Amsterdam, the Netherlands -- SARA, (Stichting Academisch Rekencentrum Amsterdam), Academic Computing Services of Amsterdam recently announced that it has pur Read more... [HPCwire-lo] Cray Delivers J916 Compact Supercomputer to Solvay Chemical October 6, 1995 Eagan, Minn. -- Cray Research Inc. has delivered a Cray J916 low-cost compact supercomputer and Cray's UniChem client/server computational chemistry software Read more... [HPCwire-lo] NEC Laboratory Reviews First Year of Cooperative Projects October 6, 1995 Sankt Augustin, Germany -- NEC C&C (Computers and Communication) Research Laboratory at the GMD Technopark has wrapped up its first year of operation. Read more... [HPCwire-lo] Sun and Sybase Say SQL Server 11 Benchmarks at 4544.60 tpmC October 6, 1995 Mountain View, Calif. -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Sybase, Inc. recently announced the first benchmark results for SQL Server 11. The result represents a n Read more... [HPCwire-lo] New Study Says Parallel Processing Market Will Reach $14B in 1999 October 6, 1995 Mountain View, Calif. -- A study by the Palo Alto Management Group (PAMG) indicates the market for parallel processing systems will increase at more than 4 Read more... ISC 2023 Booth Videos Cornelis Networks @ Dell Technologies @ Intel @ ISC23 ISC23 ISC23 Lenovo @ ISC23 Microsoft @ ISC23 ISC23 Playlist * arrow * Click Here for More Headlines * arrow [hpcwire_lo] Technologies: * Applications * Cloud * Developer Tools * Interconnects * Middleware * Networks * Processors * Storage * Systems * Visualization Sectors: * Academia & Research * Business * Entertainment * Financial Services * Government * Life Sciences * Manufacturing * Oil & Gas * Retail * Exascale * Multimedia * Events * Organizations and Affiliations * Editorial Submissions * Subscribe * About HPCwire * Contact Us * Sitemap * Reprints [tabor_logo] The Information Nexus of Advanced Computing and Data systems for a High Performance World * TCI Home * Our Publications * Solutions * Live Events * Press * Privacy Policy * Cookie Policy * About Tabor Communications * Update Subscription Preferences * California Consumers (c) 2023 HPCwire. All Rights Reserved. A Tabor Communications Publication HPCwire is a registered trademark of Tabor Communications, Inc. Use of this site is governed by our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Tabor Communications, Inc. is prohibited. HPCwire This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Reject Read More Privacy & Cookies Policy Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. Necessary [*] Necessary Always Enabled Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information. Non-necessary [*] Non-necessary Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. SAVE & ACCEPT Share Blogger Delicious Digg Email Facebook Facebook messenger Google Hacker News Line LinkedIn Mix Odnoklassniki PDF Pinterest Pocket Print Reddit Renren Short link SMS Skype Telegram Tumblr Twitter VKontakte wechat Weibo WhatsApp Xing Yahoo! Mail Copy short link [ ]Copy link