Loongson has a complete line of autonomous CPUs, ranging from low-power embedded CPUs for electronic meters to high-performance general-purpose CPUs for desktops and servers. Loongson 4 cores 2The 5GHz 3A6000 performance and Intel's 4-core 10th generation Core have played back and forth, and it is the current domestic CPU with the highest single-core performance. ASUS designed a motherboard for the Loongson 3A6000 and compared the performance of the 13th and 14th generation 4-core Core with the Loongson 3A6000When operating at a frequency of 5GHz, their performance is also basically the same, indicating that Loongson's CPU core design level has reached the world's first-class.
Loongson's CPU design capabilities are already very strong, but when it comes to customizing dedicated CPUs, they certainly don't understand their own needs as well as the users themselves. Strong versatility and can do anything is the advantage of Loongson's various series of CPUs, but it is also a disadvantage in many application scenarios. For example, multi-port network equipment needs a higher IO rate, set-top box chips need to integrate hardware decoding modules, and some special equipment needs to delete unnecessary functions to reduce costs.
When domestic companies customize CPUs for specific applications, most of them are forced to endure harsh terms in order to obtain ARM's CPU core authorization, while at the same time, Loongson is holding various levels of independent CPU cores at a loss, which can be regarded as a contradiction between supply and demand. The way to solve the contradiction is, of course, to authorize the independent CPU core to the enterprises that need it, and give full play to the maximum value of the independent CPU core in a win-win cooperation way. The wide licensing of Loongson IP will also help expand the application scenarios of Loongson's LongARCH architecture and enhance the software and hardware ecosystem.
Loongson currently has opened the authorization of three CPU cores, namely LA132, LA264, and LA364, and temporarily does not authorize LA464 and LA664 for desktop and server CPUs. These three cores correspond to the embedded CPUs of low, medium, and high performance levels, but because the models are not rich enough, the performance span of the three cores is large.
The LA132 is a minimalist, low-power design that uses the 32-bit LoongArch base instruction set. Loongson's smart door locks, treadmills, fascia guns, smart meters, children's robot training kits and other chips customized for cooperative enterprises are all based on this core.
The LA264 is a 64-bit LoongArch instruction set that supports the LoongArch base instruction set and optional 128-bit vector extension instructions. The LA264 has a higher general-purpose processing performance per GHz than the ARM A53, which is roughly at the level of the A55, and the floating-point performance is higher than the A55. The CPU using this core is suitable for industrial control equipment, and it is no problem to replace it with LA264 in scenarios where the performance of ARM A53 A55 is applicable. Loongson's CPU products based on LA264 core are mainly 2KK1000LA and 2K1500.
LA364 is positioned for high-end industrial and mobile devices, such as CPUs for tablets and thin and light laptops. The performance per GHz of the LA364 is at the level of the ARM A76, and the Loongson's 2K2000 and the 2K3000 that are still under development are the LA364 cores. Loongson has launched the printer control chip 2P0500, which also uses the LA364 core.
Compared with ARM's IP, Loongson has low process requirements and is more in line with national conditions. For example, ARM A76 uses the 7nm process, while the Loongson LA364 can use the 28nm process. Of course, there is no problem with using advanced technology, and the Loongson 2K3000, which integrates 8 LA364 cores, uses the 12nm process to obtain higher frequencies and lower power consumption. If the domestic process is advanced and has a reasonable cost, then it is not impossible for LA364 to use a process that uses 7nm or even more advanced processes.
At the Loongson 3A6000 press conference at the end of 2023, Loongson and 10 units conducted the "Loongson Processor IP Licensing Signing Ceremony", marking that IP licensing will become one of Loongson's main businesses, and Loongson has become another company that can provide high, medium and low full-level IP cores in addition to ARM.
The first batch of 10 units authorized by Loongson CPU core are:
Suzhou Xiongli Technology***
Datang Renewable Energy Experimental Research Institute***
Deyi Microelectronics shares***
Shandong Lingneng Electronic Technology Co., Ltd
Three Gorges Intelligent Control Technology***
National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi.
Beijing Derui Lingxin Technology***
Institute of Industrial Internet, University of Science and Technology Beijing.
Xi'an Institute of Microelectronics Technology.
Northern Institute of Automatic Control Technology.
Among these 10 units, Suzhou Xiongli Technology has launched the XL63 series products based on Loongson IP, which are two highly integrated three-layer gigabit network switching chips. The two network switching chips integrate four Loongson LA264 CPU cores, which can provide sufficient computing power and support 28G switching bandwidth. It also integrates up to 24-port Gigabit PHY and supports QSGMII and SGMII modes. It has Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching functions, supports NAT NAPT, SYNC-E and IEEE1588V2, and meets the service requirements of enterprise and industrial Ethernet access.
Suzhou Xiongli Technology is also developing a network processor NUP chip based on Loongson LA364 CPU core, which integrates 32 LA364 cores and has strong data processing capabilities. Speaking of the LA364 core, there is also an oolong incident. When Loongson initially tested the LA364 core, the parameters were set very conservatively, and according to the test results, the performance per GHz was about the same as that of the ARM A72 core. However, after the Loongson 2K2000 tape-out based on LA364, the measured results showed that the performance per GHz was close to the level of the ARM A76 core, which was nearly 30% higher than the ** performance.
The main products of Deyi Microelectronics and Beijing Derui Lingxin Technology are memory control chips, such as the main control of SSD hard disks, which are estimated to be based on the Loongson CPU IP core design SSD hard disk main control chips. In terms of ensuring data security and preventing leakage, autonomous CPU cores have obvious advantages.
Datang Renewable Energy Test and Research Institute is reported to be developing wind power PLC based on Loongson IP, Three Gorges Intelligent Control did not disclose the use of Loongson CPU core, and it is likely to be based on Loongson CPU core design of a dedicated microcontroller.
Shandong Lingneng Electronics is developing a low-orbit Starlink satellite communication control chip, which is based on the Loongson CPU core for full custom design, in terms of cost, power consumption, performance and other key indicators, and has the advantage of generation difference.
The name of the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi is reminiscent, but because Loongson's current open IP core does not contain the highest-performance LA664, it is unlikely that the design of a supercomputing CPU based on the Loongson CPU core is unlikely. The National Supercomputing Wuxi Center is to develop a new generation of independent and controllable artificial intelligence computing power chips, and I personally believe that its structure may be similar to the Shenwei SW26010 used for "Sunway Taihu Light", that is, a large number of dedicated computing units and general-purpose CPU cores are integrated in one chip, and the computing power is provided by the special computing unit for CPU scheduling.
There are also several scientific research units that have obtained Loongson IP authorization, mainly for research and development in the direction of industrial control.
There are many domestic CPUs, and there are very few that are completely self-designed. Most domestic CPUs purchase various functional modules designed abroad for integration, which are collectively referred to as IP cores. One level lower than the integrated CPU is the design board, and the next level is the assembly computer. Assembling a computer is something that everyone can learn, and designing a board already requires advanced technology, and the span is large enough for most people to give up mastering. It is more difficult to integrate the CPU, and designing various functional modules in the CPU is a capability that only the top teams in a few countries can master. In particular, the core of modern CPU, high-performance memory controller, high-performance data bus, etc., can best reflect the technical level of CPU design enterprises.
Most of the domestic embedded CPUs are CPU cores based on ARM design, and many important modules such as the cores of domestic desktop and server CPUs are also based on foreign IP core authorization. Of course, there are CPUs with a high degree of self-design, but because the CPU instruction set is a non-autonomous architecture such as x86 and ARM, it is not possible to license IP cores to other companies. Architecture controllers such as Intel AMD and Arm will not be qualified to re-authorize other companies, regardless of the level of technology, only whether they are autonomous.
Autonomous instruction sets are common, especially simple embedded CPU instruction sets with only a few dozen instructions, and there are actually a lot of them in China. However, it is often only used for specific devices and scenarios, and it is impossible and unnecessary to develop a complete software ecosystem. CPU cores designed based on this kind of dedicated instruction set lack the value of licensing to other companies, because they lack versatility and software ecology, and the performance ceiling is also very low, and most of them are designed and used by themselves.
Loongson has independently designed the LoongArch instruction set, which can provide CPU cores with various levels of performance from low to high, has made the instruction set public, and has established a complete software ecosystem of embedded, desktop, and server, and can provide a full set of basic development tools, and each IP has been successfully commercialized. There is no other enterprise or organization in China that meets the same conditions, and Loongson is the only one.
Looking at the world, the CPU core performance coverage is comparable to Loongson, and the IP core that can be freely licensed, except for Loongson, is the only one that is arm. Intel and AMD contain each other, and licensing high-performance CPU cores to the outside world is not "free" and is temporarily excluded. MIPS has declined, the high-performance IP of many years ago is now an old tree, and others such as Power and SPARC are also a thing of the past. RISC-V has not produced a productized high-performance IP for more than ten years, and the actual performance level of the commercialized Ali C910 is relatively low, and the performance per GHz is only slightly higher than that of Loongson LA264, which is only suitable for embedded CPUs.
In terms of software ecology, Loongson is not as good as ARM as a whole, and the gap is mainly in the embedded, among which Loongson Loongarch's mobile phone ecology is 0, and the main application in industrial control is not comprehensive enough, and it still needs to be expanded. However, in Linux desktop and server applications, the ecological gap between Loongson Loongarch and ARM is very small, which is only the achievement of the Loongson LoongArch architecture for two or three years, and ARM's Linux desktop ecology is mainly improved by domestic companies. RISC-V has been developed for more than ten years, and so far it has only been performed in the field of IoT, while desktops and servers are completely dependent on the open source ecosystem, and there are no commercial applications such as WPS and QQ.
Loongson's market share may not grow rapidly, but in detail, Loongson has quietly had the technical strength to compete head-on with ARM.