Alibaba Crafts A 16-Core RISC-V Chip @ 2.5GHz
Alibaba this week announced a RISC-V 64-bit processor comprised of 16 cores at 2.5GHz. The Chinese RISC-V CPU is fabbed at 12nm and this RISC-V processor supports out of order execution. This Alibaba design achieves a 7.1 Coremark/MHz rating, a great deal faster than any other publicly announced RISC-V processor. It's still not as fast as say the newest AMD Ryzen 9 or Intel Core i7/i9 parts, but it's certainly much better than all of the other RISC-V processors/SoCs we've seen announced to date. Unfortunately additional details on this Alibaba design are light.
Also at Tom's Hardware.
Related: Alibaba Cloud Climbs to Top 5
Linux Foundation and RISC-V Proponents Launch CHIPS Alliance
Qualcomm Invests in RISC-V Startup SiFive
Related Stories
Last week Chinese eCommerce giant Alibaba announced its Q3 earnings. Cloud revenue was $553 million, an impressive 104 percent year-over-year increase. That comes out to a run rate in the range of $2.2 billion, well behind Google which announced it is pulling in a billion dollars a quarter and still buried behind the market leaders all of whom reported around $4 billion+ a quarter.
While the growth was impressive, keep in mind when you have a small market share, it’s much easier to grow a big number than when you have a larger market share. In other words, it gets harder to grow, the larger you get.
It is worth noting, however that the growth spurt allowed Alibaba to show up in the top five of Synergy Research’s most recent Cloud Infrastructure Market Share report for the first time. While the market share was only around 3 or 4 percent. it’s still significant because no longer being lumped together with “next 10” or “rest of market.”
Synergy reports that the cloud market grew 46 percent in the fourth quarter, and each of the biggest cloud companies benefited over the smaller ones. “In large part the expansion was driven by aggressive growth of Amazon (AWS), Microsoft, Google and Alibaba, who all increased their share of the worldwide market at the expense of smaller cloud providers,” Synergy wrote in their report.
Intel, RISC-V Rally Rival Groups
Intel and RISC-V backers announced rival alliances to nurture competing ecosystems around tomorrow's processors.
Intel initiated Compute Express Link (CXL), an open chip-to-chip interconnect that it expects to use on its processors starting in 2021 to link to accelerators and memories. Other members include Alibaba, Cisco, Dell EMC, Facebook, Google, HPE, Huawei, and Microsoft.
Separately, a handful of RISC-V proponents launched the CHIPS Alliance, a project of the Linux Foundation to develop a broad set of open-source IP blocks and tools for the instruction set architecture. Initial members include Esperanto, Google, SiFive, and Western Digital. CHIPS stands for Common Hardware for Interfaces, Processors, and Systems.
The CHIPS Alliance is, by far, the most ambitious of the two efforts and is just one of several open-hardware initiatives in the works at the Linux Foundation. CHIPS aims to create open-source blocks for a variety of embedded cores as well as multi-core SoCs capable of running Linux — and, ultimately, an open-source design flow to build and test them.
Also at SDxCentral.
Related: Compute Express Link Specification (CXL) Version 1.0 Launched
Qualcomm Invests in RISC-V Startup SiFive
Investors are zeroing in on the open standard RISC-V instruction set architecture and the processor intellectual property being developed by a batch of high-flying chip startups.
Last fall, Esperanto Technologies announced a $58 million funding round. The chip IP vendor is incorporating more than 1,000 RISC-V cores onto a single 7-nm chip. Data storage specialist Western Digital is an early investor in Esperanto, Mountain View, Calif.
This week, another RISC-V startup, SiFive, announced a $65.4 million funding round that included new investor Qualcomm Ventures. SiFive, San Mateo, Calif., has so far raised more than $125 million, and is seen as a challenger to chip IP leader Arm.
Observers note that wireless modem leader Qualcomm is among Arm's biggest customers, making its investment in SiFive intriguing. Also participating in the Series D round were existing investors Chengwei Capital of Shanghai along with Sutter Hill Ventures and Spark Capital. Intel Capital and Western Digital also were early investors.
Also at EE Times.
See also: SiFive Acquires USB 2.0 and 3.x IP Portfolio to Strengthen RISC-V SoCs
Previously: RISC-V Projects to Collaborate
SiFive and UltraSoC Partner to Accelerate RISC-V Development Through DesignShare
SiFive Introduces RISC-V Linux-Capable Multicore Processor
SiFive HiFive Unleashed Not as Open as Previously Thought
Linux Foundation and RISC-V Proponents Launch CHIPS Alliance
Separately, a handful of RISC-V proponents launched the CHIPS Alliance, a project of the Linux Foundation to develop a broad set of open-source IP blocks and tools for the instruction set architecture. Initial members include Esperanto, Google, SiFive, and Western Digital. CHIPS stands for Common Hardware for Interfaces, Processors, and Systems.
Esperanto Technologies and SiFive look like the names to watch.
Related: First Open Source RISC-V Implementations Become Available
Western Digital Unveils RISC-V Controller Design
Raspberry Pi Foundation Announces RISC-V Foundation Membership
Western Digital Publishes RISC-V "SweRV" Core Design Under Apache 2.0 License
Alibaba Reports Their XT910 RISC-V Core To Be Faster Than An Arm Cortex-A73
A few weeks back Alibaba announced the "XT910" as the fastest RISC-V processor featuring 16 cores and clock speeds up to 2.5GHz while being manufactured on a 12nm node. This by far beats most RISC-V hardware currently available and now at this week's Hot Chips conference the Chinese company is reporting that the XT910 is faster than an Arm Cortex-A73.
Alibaba confirmed the XT910 as a TSMC 12nm FinFET design with clock speeds between 2.0GHz and 2.5GHz for this RISC-V 64-bit processor supporting the RISC-V 0.7.1 Vector Extension.
Benchmarks posted by Alibaba's T-Head organization put the XT910 faster than an Arm Cortex-A73 found within the Kirin 970 SoC in areas across automotive, consumer, networking, and telecom spaces.
Cortex-A73 (launched in 2016) reportedly has less floating point IPC than its Cortex-A72 predecessor (found in the Raspberry Pi 4B). ARM's latest performance-oriented cores are the Cortex-A78 and Cortex-X1.
Previously: Alibaba Announces a 16-Core RISC-V CPU
Related: ARM Cortex A73 Unveiled
ARM Cortex-A75, Cortex-A55, and Mali-G72 Announced
ARM Announces Cortex-A78 and Cortex-X1
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 28 2019, @10:47AM (4 children)
Well, shit. I was hoping for a Russian chip like this. The Chinese might very well sell gathered information on US citizens to the US government but the Russians would probably keep it for themselves unless it was harmful to the US government.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @01:10PM
looking for a OrangePI now with it installed. $75 ?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Sunday July 28 2019, @03:54PM (2 children)
I'm still dreaming of someone doing a chip with something like the integer side of the 6809 expanded to 64 bits and the associated shitload of registers those bits in an instruction word would enable — the addressing modes alone were bloody fabulous. Add a robust FPU and memory management, cache, some sweet bit manipulation, memory movement, and atomic semaphore-like operations, and you'd have one hell of a CPU.
The Intel mess is still... a mess. RISC is still too... RISC. I pine for an instruction set that is both powerful and highly, or even better perfectly, applicable across all CPU registers.
But oh well. We're too deep in this hole to dig ourselves out, methinks.
--
Use promo code "NETFLIX" to get 50% off your social life!
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday July 29 2019, @12:35AM (1 child)
I find it difficult to make up my mind about this topic. From the standpoint of programming in assembly, I'd be thinking about something along the lines of what you describe. A clean design without decades of vestigal junk in it, more on the CISC side, but with plenty of general purpose registers. (Did you ever read about the NEC V60? That might be in the ballpark.) But from the standpoint of using a compiler, maybe I can overlook whatever bizarre voodoo the chip designers and compiler writers came up with to increase throughput, as long as it works. (Huh? Did somebody say meltdown?) And then there's looking at it from the standpoint of actually writing a compiler. Now all those registers aren't looking so great, because the more registers there are, the smarter the compiler will have to be to actually make use of them. So maybe I'll just trim those out and save some bits in the instruction word. Speaking of which, writing a compiler would also be easier without having to deal with a thousand different instruction encodings and operand types and prefixes. And passing parameters on the stack is so easy let's keep doing it that way...
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday July 29 2019, @09:18PM
...kind of depends on how you write the compiler. The more registers with the same functionality there are, the more types of operations and operands can be register-resident without having to resort to stack-flippery.
--
I believe there's a person out there for everybody.
My person happened to be five cats.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @11:12AM (10 children)
Clock is meaningless without knowing IPC and TDP.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 28 2019, @11:38AM (6 children)
Not really. It all depends on what you're looking to use the chip for. IPC don't mean a whole lot to me except when I'm transcoding video and TDP don't mean shit to me ever unless it requires herculean cooling methods.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @12:56PM (5 children)
Battery life doesn't mean shit to you?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 28 2019, @01:25PM (4 children)
Nope. I despise laptops because of the tiny screens and shitty keyboards, tablets are like computers but without actually being useful, and phones are like tiny, less useful tablets that can also make phone calls and send/receive texts.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @12:13AM (1 child)
What you are really saying is that living in the basement there isn't any need for portable devices...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 29 2019, @04:57PM
Nope, I'm saying I almost never have any need of anything from a phone beyond calling and texting while I'm out and about because anyone who wants anything more can eat a bag of dicks. And I won't even be available for those while fishing.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Monday July 29 2019, @01:47PM (1 child)
You can get so much more computer for the money in a tower, and it's a lot easier to find configurations that support ECC ram. Upgradeability is orders of magnitude better, and I can put in as many native serial ports as I've got PCIe slots for.
Work gave me a laptop, and I almost always use it docked, even though the dock is flaky (based on USB-C/thunderbolt, has firmware, etc.). I've got to have two monitors and a real keyboard + mouse.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 29 2019, @04:58PM
Quality input devices make a fucking world of difference, yep.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 28 2019, @12:05PM (1 child)
Light on details, likely proprietary, and not coming to the home user. But it's still good news.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday July 28 2019, @05:57PM
OTOH, "Out of Order execution" isn't exactly a benefit. It may be how you achieve a benefit, but in and of itself it means you need to verify carefully for things like Spectre vulnerabilities.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by Zappy on Monday July 29 2019, @01:14PM
Phoronix cites a 7.1 Coremark/MHz score, that's comparable with an Intel Core 2 Duo generation cpu.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Shire on Sunday July 28 2019, @11:30AM (16 children)
While China's chip industry lags far behind the West, Google's AI investment in China, specifically in Singapore, and it's willingness to work with their totalitarian government while simultaneously refusing to work with the US has become a flashpoint for realistic charges of treason. Google/Alphabet are providing significant advancements in AI to China at the expense of western nations and these actions are why Alibaba is able to release this new chip today.
This business model is going to ultimately be disasterous for Google. It sounds like a work of fiction but we're already seeing the results of this AI partnership with communist china in the way Google has been using these AI advancements to censor and manipulate political discourse here in the US, and it's why they are now the target of an antitrust investigation. Big Tech is far bigger than AT&T was when they were finally broken up. Their time is coming, and this kind of irresponsible corporate behavior is only going to speed things along.
That being said, no one in the West will trust these chinese processors. As mentioned in the Toms Hardware review, while RISC-V architecture is open source, the instruction set can be arbitrarily extended which makes these chips capable of functionality no one can predict, functionality that can open back doors that a repressive government like china's is only too happy to get designed in and exploit. This kind of chip is even less trustworthy than anything being pushed (and currently banned here) by Huawei.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @11:35AM (11 children)
Google doesn't design or fabricate cpus, wtf are you talking about?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 28 2019, @11:39AM (4 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_processing_unit [wikipedia.org]
As to the rest, the hobbit will have to weigh in.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @12:49PM (3 children)
That is not a CPU.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 28 2019, @01:32PM (2 children)
OP didn't say "CPU".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @01:37PM (1 child)
But they did say "This is why google is under investigation". Where "this" refers to this Alibaba CPU.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday July 29 2019, @03:03PM
The OP actually said, "it's why they are now the target of an antitrust investigation."
The referent of "it" isn't completely clear, but it appears to be the "AI partnership with communist china".
Not just the Alibaba CPU.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Sunday July 28 2019, @03:54PM (5 children)
Chinese manufacturers know their chip fabs are a decade or more behind the West so they are turning instead to a technique companies like nvidia are using by integrating bleeding edge AI circuitry with their low end RISC-v processors. That bleeding edge AI tech is coming from Google and its tech they refuse to develop in partnership with the US. So we have an American company working to advance the goals of communist China while at the same time withholding that IP from the US.
You are correct - Google/Alphabet do not design or fabricate cpus but they do develop and design the logic and processes behind their AI systems which are then used to give china a leg up on the industry. I wrongly assumed this would be common knowledge for folks on a site like this but it appears there are "anonymous cowards" out there that haven't been keeping up to date.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @05:43PM (4 children)
Which has nothing to do with designing a cpu like the one this article is about. Designing a TPU is not the same thing as designing a CPU or GPU.
There is a reason Intel hasn't be able to develop GPUS that are competitive with NVIDIA and AMD. The knowledge does not just transfer from one type of processor to the next.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 28 2019, @06:30PM (3 children)
They've always had the knowledge, Intel integrated graphics is on hundreds of millions of systems and "good enough" for many users, and they are reentering the discrete GPU market [tomshardware.com] next year.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @06:41PM (2 children)
Intel makes low tier gpus. They cannot compete with NVIDIA and AMD.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 28 2019, @06:50PM (1 child)
We'll see next year.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @06:31AM
Didn't Intel poach quite a few graphics people from AMD and the others recently? I wouldn't be surprised if their cards are good, and if they have good linux support I'd buy one in a heartbeat (and there's no reason to believe they wouldn't have great 1st class support).
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @11:40AM (2 children)
So when did Singapore becomes Chinese?
Because I already trust Intel's. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Thanks for a nice laugh. Kind of explains the American fear of Huawei. Propaganda and strong arm tactics because can no longer compete?? Reminds me of a cartel, not a country run by laws.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Shire on Sunday July 28 2019, @03:58PM (1 child)
Google was unable to operate directly inside China. They established Singapore as their asian hub but roughly 90% of the staff at that location is from mainland China.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @06:00PM
yeah, it's sad you had to even explain that. i would have thought it was obvious what happened by the info you provided.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday July 28 2019, @10:00PM
Goodness the stupid is strong in this one.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @12:23PM
There are absolutely no backdoors in this hardware. None. The government of China guarantee it. On your life.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @01:01PM (5 children)
What is the point of making it 16 bit? To reduce memory usage?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 28 2019, @01:26PM (3 children)
Sixteen core CPU. Sixty-four bit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by maxwell demon on Monday July 29 2019, @06:23AM (2 children)
That makes 4 bits per core. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday July 29 2019, @03:06PM
Four bits per core. An improvement over the 70's. Wasn't there a bit-slice processor back then with one bit per core?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 29 2019, @04:58PM
Damn you, math!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday July 28 2019, @03:21PM
So it can run SNES ROMs natively.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @03:52PM (2 children)
A Chinese company now nipping at the heels of AMD and Intel
Or am I missing something?
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Sunday July 28 2019, @04:04PM
They are still very very far from nipping at Intel or AMD's heels but they have the backing of the communist chinese government along with the IP that Google is essentially handing over to them coupled with whatever technology they can steal from the West to start to close the gap. China rarely develops anything new themselves, but when their fearless leader points them in a direction they become quite good at stealing from the rest of the world and replicating it. They're sort of like the Pakleds from the old Star Trek Next Gen. They don't create, they steal and replicate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @10:02PM
You're missing something... nips are Japanese not Chinese.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Sunday July 28 2019, @04:32PM (3 children)
Can one of the experts here give a summary quantitative comparison of this to the top-of-the-line offerings from AMD and Intel? Or is such a comparison useless because it’s RISC?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @04:59PM (1 child)
As TFS says, not enough details. It's likely to be worse than x86 though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @12:12PM
It's RiscV, which is thoroughly documented. The instruction set is miles better dan x64.
These new processors are nowhere near as fast as current x64 though. Not even close and won't be for quite some time.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @06:03PM
chinese spyware instead of american spyware?