At present, in the field of chip instruction set and IP, the two most bullish companies are Intel and Arm.
Intel's x86 instruction set, which has no rival in the PC field, has won 90%+ market share, but Intel's x86 instruction set is currently used by only 4 manufacturers in the world, and Intel does not license it.
Intel not only has instruction sets and IP cattle, but Intel also designs and manufactures its own CPUs, which is an IDM company, and its CPU products have also won more than 70% of the global market share in the X86 field.
ARM and Intel have similarities and differences, the similarity is ARM's instruction set, which is also unrivaled in the mobile field, and has also won 90%+ market share.
The difference is that ARM itself does not make cores, but only authorizes the instruction set architecture, IP cores, etc., so that other chip companies can use ARM's technology to make cores, such as Qualcomm, Huawei, and Apple's chips, all of which are ARM architecture.
In addition, ARM is a simple instruction set, and x86 is a complex instruction set, so I won't expand on the differences here.
It can be seen that ARM and X86 are the ceilings in the chip instruction set and IP, which can be called no opponent.
However, recently, there is a Chinese company that has done things like Intel and Arm, and many netizens call it "China's Arm + Intel", and this company is Loongson.
Why is it said to be China's ARM?This is because Loongson has publicly licensed its self-developed Loongarch, and at the same time, it has also authorized its own three IP cores.
Unlike ARM, Loongson's external authorization is free, as long as you sign an agreement with Loongson, there are currently more than 10 companies, using Loongson's instruction set, architecture, to develop their own chips, isn't this ARM's approach?
Why is it still China's Intel?The reason is that Loongson also has its own CPU, it is not like ARM, it is only externally licensed, Loongson already has three series: Loongson 1st generation, Loongson 2nd generation, and Loongson 3rd generation.
The latest at the moment is Loongson 3A6000, 4 cores and 8 threads, 25GHz, but the comprehensive performance of this chip has reached the level of Intel's 10th generation Core i3-10100, and the IPC has reached the level of 13th generation Core.
Loongson hopes that in the future, it will be able to build its own LoongArch ecosystem, which will form a three-legged trend with X86 and ARM to replace Intel.
It can be seen that Loongson is indeed a synthesis of ARM + INTEL, it not only produces its own chips, but its performance is only three years behind Intel, and like ARM, it licenses instruction sets, IP cores, etc.
Loongson's idea is to gather the resources of many domestic manufacturers and work together to make the Loongarch ecosystem stronger and bigger, and eventually let the Chinese use the Chinese's own CPU and reduce the dependence on x86 and ARM, after all, foreign technology may be stuck, and their own is really able to control.