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
Related Stories
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.
Liliputing reports
Most modern desktop and notebook computers ship with Intel or AMD processors and Windows or OS X software. A few companies are positioning products with ARM-based chips as desktop computers. But the Tavolga Terminal TB-T22BT(русский [1]) is something different.
This all-in-one desktop PC has a MIPS-based processor and runs Debian 8 Linux software.
The computer is made by Russian company T-Platforms, which also offers an SF-BT1 processor module for those that want to build their own hardware.
Both devices use a Baikal-T1 processor which is a 32-bit dual-core MIPS P5600 processor. Like the computers, the chip was designed in Russia, although it's based on work from Imagination Technologies (the company behind the MIPS architecture).
The all-in-one desktop features a 21.5 inch IPS display, support for up to 8GB of DDR3-1600 memory, and up to 64GB of flash storage. It has four USB 2.0 ports, a PS/2 port, Gigabit Ethernet, and a fanless case for silent operation. There's also support for smart cards.
T-Platforms is positioning the TB-T22BT as a device that can either be used as a standalone computer with support for Linux-based apps such as LibreOffice and Firefox, or as a thin client system that you can use to connect to remote machines using remote desktop software.
[1] The translation dropdown menu did not work. Google translation
Previous: Russia Plans to Dump Some American CPUs for Homegrown Technology
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
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
TSMC delivers first batch of Baikal BE-M1000 CPUs based on ARM Cortex-A57 cores
Baikal Electronics confirms they received the first batch of 5000 BE-M1000 CPUs from their foundry, TSMC. These are second-generation processors based on ARM architecture.
[...] Baikal BE-M1000 is based on eight ARM Cortex A57 cores all clocked up to 1.5 GHz at TDP at 30-35W. The CPU has 4MB of L2 cache and 8MB of L3 cache. It comes with an integrated ARM Mali-T682 GPU clocked at 700 to 750 MHz.
The processor offers a performance level of Intel Core i3-7300T, which should be good enough for standard office use.
The Intel Core i3-7300T was a dual-core Kaby Lake CPU launched in 2017, with a similar TDP (35 Watts).
Previously: Desktop and All-in-One Arm Linux Computers Launched with Baikal-M Processor
Related: Russia to Build RISC-V Processors for Laptops: 8-core, 2 GHz, 12nm, 2025
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by c0lo on Thursday July 15 2021, @11:42AM (1 child)
The correct question is how much fuel the diesel generator to power it will consume.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 15 2021, @02:03PM
That's not the correct question, the correct question is: "Do you have good taste in 'art'?" [bbc.co.uk]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 15 2021, @11:57AM (8 children)
If this is for desktops or servers, isn't having an AXI4 external bus a strange choice, compared to also offering PCIe?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday July 15 2021, @01:50PM (1 child)
From the article it seems that the core customer is supposed to be various government agencies and institutions so it might not matter which they chose. It's not supposed to be for the consumer market as far as I can tell.
Also AXI4 is, as far as I know, free and available without much regulations and such. Is using PCIe free (money and rules wise)? Also the main stakeholders in PCIe are all the big tech corps and most of them are not necessarily the first choice for Russian tech and companies. If you are building a RISC-V processor you might be in tight with ARM and if you are then you might as well use AXI4 to since it's also from ARM? That it's free might just be a bonus in that regard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 15 2021, @04:36PM
Core customer is REvil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 16 2021, @02:57AM
It is for government money. The story of the previous "russian CPU" finished in a large criminal case, guess it is time for a new iteration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal_CPU [wikipedia.org]
http://www.msk-post.com/politics/money_of_mia_laundered_by_baikal32487/ [msk-post.com]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday July 16 2021, @11:21AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday July 16 2021, @01:05PM (3 children)
In fact the whole thing seems a bit odd, if you're going to spend a fortune to roll your own, meaning make your computer industry independent of US suppliers, you want to do an x86. That's the thing the US can use to hit Russia since both of the world's x86 suppliers are US-based. You can get RISC-V and ARM from anywhere, but if the US decides you can't have x86's you're screwed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 17 2021, @12:42AM (2 children)
Why? They can do x86 in software if they /really/ need to. RISC seems to have all the momentum right now.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday July 17 2021, @01:48AM (1 child)
Runs Windows does it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 17 2021, @02:25AM
Is the Russian government also bribed into stupidity by Microsoft?
(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday July 15 2021, @04:48PM (2 children)
Does RISC-V phone home?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 15 2021, @05:17PM
Of course it will phone home. The only question is, what is "home"? I would be fairly confident the Russian chips are copy/paste of stolen
NSAIntel designs.(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday July 16 2021, @01:11PM
Not, but on Putinist Russia, RISC-V something something you!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 15 2021, @05:59PM
Why would Russia (or the USA) need to develop RISC V chips when they (we) can just buy them from China?
(ducks, hides under desk)
If a lazy person with no education can cross the border and take your job, we need to upgrade your job skills.