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from the who-remembers-when-a-mini-computer-was-the-size-of-only-three-large-refrigerators? dept.
China's Zhaoxin CPU Is in Its First Mini-PC
Networking specialist Ruijie Networks on Tuesday launched its first mini-PC featuring China's homegrown Zhaoxin KaiXian KX-U6780A processor.
[...] The RG-CT7800 takes the form of a 2.4-liter, black chassis. The device features a custom motherboard for the KaiXian KX-U6780A, since the processor is ball grid array-based. The motherboard comes with two SO-DIMM DDR4 RAM slots too.
[...] Ruijie Networks offers the RG-CT7800 with 8GB of DDR4 memory and a 256GB SSD. One of the product images show the device with what appears to be four USB 2.0 ports and two 3.5mm jacks for heaphones and microphones. It's unclear what other ouputs are on the RG-CT7800.
The RG-CT7800 is compatible with the Chinese-developed UOS (Unity Operating System) and NeoKylin operating systems, which are both based on Linux. Ruijie Networks has made the necessary software modifications so that the RG-CT7800 can run streaming software and office suites, such as Kingsoft WPS Office and Yongzhong Office. The mini-PC also supports a bunch of peripherals, including Pantum printers, CZUR document scanners, digital drawing tablets and bar code scanners.
KaiXian KX-U6780A is a "high-end" 8-core x86-64 CPU from Zhaoxin, a joint venture between Via Technologies and the Chinese government. Any way you measure it, performance is relatively low, but that is not the point:
According to GeekBench, the Zhaoxin KX-U6780A comes in at a 1910 on single core score and a 8670 on a multi core score. This is roughly comparable to a modern high-end Intel Atom, or 2012 era four-core Intel Core i5-3550U.
However, where this gets interesting is how it fits into China's "3-5-2" plan. This is Beijing's mandate to wean China's public sector off foreign technology. By the end of 2020, 30% of the technology infrastructure needs to be domestic, while by the end of 2021 this number jumps to 50%, while the remaining 20% would need to be replaced by the end of 2022. The RG-CT7800 -- while technically unremarkable -- will be a perfect cog in the machine for this plan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2020, @10:16AM (3 children)
This is good, in that now people have another option to choose from (if these chips can be exported out of china, that is) but it's bad in that we know these chips are going to be pwned by the Chinese .gov straight out of the factory. But then US chips are too, by the US .gov.
But it seems to me there should be some way of exploiting the common ground of these chips to create something that isn't backdoored.
Consider a custom designed machine that has one of these new chips installed, and an intel / AMD chip right alongside it. 99% of the time, you feed the same input into the two chips, they are going to produce the same output. The remaining 1% is likely to be the area where the nasty shit is hidden. Shouldn't it be possible to create a virtual system running on this blended platform, a virtual machine that effectively averages the results of the two chips? That way any anomalous black helicopter shit outputted from from either chip would be smoothed into uselessness by noise from the other.
(Score: 2) by engblom on Wednesday February 26 2020, @10:53AM
This is impossible for a normal user and even if you had a factory with all the expert, it would be difficult to get a such main board made. Also, you need at least 3 different CPU from different manufacturers fitting in that main board. Now also if you are not the manufacturer of that main board yourself, how do you know that the "virtual CPU" consisting of at least 3 CPU is not having a backdoors. It would not be too difficult to add a bit of extra logic to the main board so it got backdoors too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2020, @02:31PM
That's not how the backdooring works. Look at the Intel Management Engine. [wikipedia.org]
It's basically a completely independent microcomputer within your computer that can access arbitrary systems within your computer. I imagine the Chinese backdoors will be something similar. Since the spy systems tend to be integrated into the hardware itself, they're impossible to physically disable. Only option [wikipedia.org] for our spy system is to toggle a completely undocumented setting, one discovered by those pesky Russian hackers, that was meant for 'high assurance platform' users, like the NSA.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday February 26 2020, @04:15PM
Can China have three models of chips:
0. For the elites within the country -- no compromise, backdoors, etc
1. For domestic use -- compromise backdoors
2. For export use -- different compromise backdoors
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.