Russia's Elbrus 8CB Microarchitecture: 8-core VLIW on TSMC 28nm
All of the world's major superpowers have a vested interest in building their own custom silicon processors. The vital ingredient to this allows the superpower to wean itself off of US-based processors, guarantee there are no supplemental backdoors, and if needed add their own. As we have seen with China, custom chip designs, x86-based joint ventures, or Arm derivatives seem to be the order of the day. So in comes Russia, with its custom Elbrus VLIW design that seems to have its roots in SPARC.
Russia has been creating processors called Elbrus for a number of years now. For those of us outside Russia, it has mostly been a big question mark as to what is actually under the hood – these chips are built for custom servers and office PCs, often at the direction of the Russian government and its requirements. We have had glimpses of the design, thanks to documents from Russian supercomputing events, however these are a few years old now. If you are not in Russia, you are unlikely to ever get your hands on one at any rate. However, it recently came to our attention of a new programming guide listed online for the latest Elbrus-8CB processor designs.
The latest Elbrus-8CB chip, as detailed in the new online programming guide published this week, built on TSMC's 28nm, is a 333 mm2 design featuring 8 cores at 1.5 GHz. Peak throughput according to the documents states 576 GFLOPs of double precision, with the chip offering four channels of DDR4-2400, good for 68.3 GB/s. The L1 and L2 caches are private, with a 64 kB L1-D cache, a 128 kB L1-I cache, and a 512 kB L2 cache. The L3 cache is shared between the cores, at 2 MB/core for a total of 16 MB. The processor also supports 4-way server multiprocessor combinations, although it does not say on what protocol or what bandwidth.
It is a compiler focused design, much like Intel's Itanium, in that most of the optimizations happen at the compiler level. Based on compiler first designs in the past, that typically does not make for a successful product. Documents from 2015 state that a continuing goal of the Elbrus design is x86 and x86-64 binary translation with only a 20% overhead, allowing full support for x86 code as well as x86 operating systems, including Windows 7 (this may have been updated since 2015).
Previously: Russian Homegrown Elbrus-4C CPU Released
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The Moscow Center for SPARC Technologies has released a quad-core chip built on a 65 nm process:
Despite the company's own name, the chip is actually built on the proprietary "Elbrus" instruction set architecture and not on SPARC. The CPU cores are clocked only at 800 MHz each, and the chip is manufactured on a rather old 65 nm process. The chip has a TDP of 45 W, which isn't too bad considering its target market [of high-performance PCs and servers].
However, the performance may be lacking. Going by the MCST's own benchmarks (shown above and below), the CPU is only compared with older Atom chips that used to target netbooks or (also old) "Pentium-M" notebook processors. Even if the Elbrus-4C wins by a large margin in the floating point score, it does so against obsolete processors. When it is compared against the others for integer performance, the difference is much smaller.
The Register speculates that this chip may be the first effort to wean Russia off of "compromised" Intel and AMD processors.
The Elbrus 4c used in the PCs and servers is said to support two instruction sets: very long instruction word and SPARC. It's also said to be capable of x86 emulation, and to run Linux natively, after one performs binary translation.
The Elbrus ARM-401 PC is a minitower packing a version of Linux also called Elbrus and boasts four USB 2.0 ports, a PCI-express slot, gigabit ethernet and not much more. The CPU is apparently capable of running Doom 3, enabling Russian gamers to go fragging like it's 2004.
The Server Elbrus 4.4 is a four-socket affair and four of the machines fit into a 1U chassis. Gigabit ethernet, SATA and plenty of PCI slots connect it to other kit and the rest of the worlds.
MCST has announced the products are on sale, but don't expect an online configurator at which you can run up a rig and get a live price: the outfit offers just the sales@mcst.ru email address for would-be buyers.
Russia To Build RISC-V Processors for Laptops: 8-core, 2 GHz, 12nm, 2025
Russian outlet Vedomosti.ru today is reporting that the conglomerate Rostec, a Russian state-backed corporation specializing in investment in technology, has penned a deal with server company Yadro and silicon design company Sintakor to develop RISC-V processors for computers, laptops, and servers. Initial reports are suggesting that Sintakor will develop a powerful enough RISC-V design to power government and education systems by 2025.
The cost of the project is reported to be around 30 billion rubles ($400m), with that the organizers of the project plan to sell 60,000 systems based around new processors containing RISC-V cores as the main processing cores. The reports state that the goal is to build an 8-core processor, running at 2 GHz, using a 12-nanometer process, which presumably means GlobalFoundries but at this point it is unclear. Out of the project funding, two-thirds will be provided by 'anchor customers' (such as Rostec and subsidiaries), while the final third will come from the federal budget. The systems these processors will go into will operate initially at Russia's Ministry of Education and Science, as well as the Ministry of Health.
Previously: Russian Homegrown Elbrus-4C CPU Released
Linux-Based, MIPS-Powered Russian All-in-One PC Launched
Programming Guide for Russia's "28nm" Elbrus-8CB CPU Published
Desktop and All-in-One Arm Linux computers launched with Baikal-M processor
The last time we wrote news about Baikal Electronics, the Russian company was offering MIPS-based processors, but they've now announced that several iRU-branded desktops and one all-in-one computer had been introduced with Baikal-M octa-core Cortex-A57 processor with Mali-T628 GPU, and support for up to 32GB DDR4 RAM, up to 3TB HDD.
The computers target the Russian market, especially business to business (B2B) and business to government (B2G) customers, with the use of Astra Linux distribution that contains Russian "data protection tools" such as ViPNet SafeBoot, PAK Sobol, and others.
[...] The all-in-one version of the computer pretty much has the same features with up to 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 3TB HDD, and a 23.8-inch IPS display with Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution.
Related:
Linux-Based, MIPS-Powered Russian All-in-One PC Launched
Programming Guide for Russia's "28nm" Elbrus-8CB CPU Published
Russia to Build RISC-V Processors for Laptops: 8-core, 2 GHz, 12nm, 2025
Russian-Made Elbrus CPUs Fail Trials, 'A Completely Unacceptable Platform'
SberTech, a technology arm of Sber, Russia's biggest bank, has evaluated the Russian-made MCST Elbrus-8C processors in multiple workloads, but the results were utterly disappointing and the processors failed the test. The testers cited "Insufficient memory, slow memory, few cores, low frequency. Functional requirements not been met at all" as key reasons for the failure. However, there is hope, according to SberTech engineers.
[...] "The Elbrus-8C server is very weak compared to Intel Xeon 'Cascade Lake'," said Anton Zhbankov, a representative for SberTech, said at the Elbrus Partner Day conference (via ServerNews.ru) earlier this month. "Insufficient memory [256MB], slow memory, few cores, low frequency. Functional requirements not been met at all."
[...] In fact, SberTech's evaluation was the first in-depth testing of the Elbrus-8C platform in a banking application. The evaluators compared dual- and quad-socket Elbrus-8C machines (16 - 32 cores per box) to a dual-processor server based on Intel's Xeon Gold 6230 processor that the company currently uses. SberTech could not test the more powerful Elbrus-8CB as it is still not available despite being formally introduced.
[...] "One of the surprising things about the Elbrus-8C server was that it is a real product," said Zhbankov. "It was a real server that we were given. [...] It is an actual product that has its disadvantages, loads of disadvantages, but we can work with them."
[...] [While] SberTech's engineers expected the Elbrus-8C machine to perform much worse and be orders of magnitude slower than Intel's Xeon Gold 6230 machine from 2019, even a two to three times performance difference is significant enough for commercial companies not to deploy a platform since it makes no financial sense. "At the moment, Sberbank says no, we cannot deploy Elbrus machines into our ecosystem, but we are pleasantly surprised that it works at all," said Zhbankov.
The complaints were only partly about the CPU's relatively low performance, with problems concerning the build quality of the server(s) being highlighted.
1.3 GHz 8-core, 8-thread CPU does not beat 20-core, 40-thread Xeon. Surprise?
Previously: Programming Guide for Russia's "28nm" Elbrus-8CB CPU Published
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @07:21AM (10 children)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @07:42AM
It's a good start. If they are going to just use TSMC's fabs, then they can get a much better node if they are willing to pay for it.
(Score: 4, Funny) by turgid on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:11AM (1 child)
Nearly fast enough to run Word, Excel, Internet Exploder and MacAfee concurrently, then?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:36AM
2011 called and want their meme back. It's Edgium and Windows Defender nowadays.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:52AM (1 child)
Ah, so what you're saying there is 'tried and trusted' technology.....well, for given values of 'trusted' obviously, though I do appreciate the Russian point of view that they'd rather have processors with their own backdoor code in the beasties powering their systems rather than having to use foreign ones with Chinese/Israeli/USian backdoor code lurking in them.
(Score: 1) by petecox on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:17AM
China have their own x86-emulation in (MIPS based) Loongson, should their Zhaoxin partnership with Via ever be Huaweied by sanctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @01:10PM (3 children)
I thought translation + VLIW was judged an architectural dead end some time ago. Maybe they found a way to make it work.
Did they provide any standard benchmark results?
Would be interesting to see how the machine does in 32 and 64 bit translation mode and well as native.
Also power consumption.
They are only at 1500Mhz, so there is some process scale left in the architecture, if the above are reasonable.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 02 2020, @01:59PM
Maybe they're trying to troll the planet, but don't realize that the joke is out of date.
Like Trinity in The Matrix Reloaded, using SSH and NMAP to exploit the SSH CRC-32 bug [securityfocus.com] from Feb 08 2001.
Punched cards are like a short piece of 80 channel paper tape.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 02 2020, @04:59PM
In other news, x86 emulation/translation on ARM could really take off, as long as Intel doesn't sue.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by petecox on Tuesday June 02 2020, @07:11PM
"translation + VLIW was judged an architectural dead end"
Didn't Nvidia license some Transmeta code-morphing IP in their ARM 'Denver' cores?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:53AM
Define "behind". If it is lacking "management" modules and dumbass design flaws like the one used in Spectre, etc. Then yea it is "behind". Adding features that the end buyer doesn't want or need isn't necessarily progress.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @01:23PM (1 child)
Home grown russian CPUtin, complete with integrated KGB-inspired state-of-the-art surveillance technology !
(Score: 1) by AHuxley on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:07PM
We got PRISM in the free West.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 02 2020, @02:00PM (2 children)
Does it have a management engine! With high RPMs.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday June 02 2020, @04:50PM (1 child)
RPMs? Russian Programming Modules?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 02 2020, @06:14PM
Russian Package Mangler
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.