In recent months, two major companies in the domestic CPU have been listed one after another. On August 12, Haiguang Information officially logged into Science and Technology Innovation Board , and its market value is now close to 150 billion yuan. As a company that just achieved profitability last year, Haiguang Information has been recognized by the secondary market. Before Haiguang, Loongson Zhongke was logged into the Science and Technology Innovation Board in June this year, with a market value of more than 30 billion yuan. Behind the two companies' listings is that the domestic CPU of is quietly changing .
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Instruction Set is the core of the CPU core. The current instruction set is mainly divided into two categories: complex instruction set (CISC) and thin instruction set (RISC). x86 is the classic complex instruction set (CISC), while the common ARM, RISC-V, and MIPS are thin instruction set (RISC).
Strictly speaking, the two major instruction sets are not divided into high or low, mainly because they have different advantages in different fields and directions. The advantages of CISC are rich instructions, powerful functions, and flexible addressing. The disadvantage is that the instruction usage frequency is uneven, which is not conducive to the implementation of VLSI (ultra-large scale integrated circuit). The advantages of RISC are that it is simple and easy to design, and has high program execution efficiency, but the number of instructions is small and the addressing is inflexible.
In the CPU field, the two architectures X86 and ARM occupy the mainstream market. Among them, X86 occupies the absolute market in the PC and server fields with its powerful performance. The advantage of the ARM architecture lies in the mobile terminal. Due to the emergence of Apple M1 chip , the penetration rate of has increased in the PC field.
Returning to the domestic CPU industry, there are currently three main routes for domestic CPUs:
- is based on x86 kernel authorization, representing manufacturers are Zhaoxin and Haiguang;
- The second is based on ARM instruction set authorization, representing manufacturers include Feiteng and Huawei ;
- The third is self-developed instruction set, representing manufacturers include Loongson Zhongke and Shenwei .
X86 authorization
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For a long time, the CPU market based on X86 architecture has been occupied by Intel and AMD. The reason why the two companies support the monopoly is, on the one hand, its excellent chip design capabilities, and on the other hand, it is also due to the long-term Wintel alliance formed by the X86 camp with Microsoft . Intel has been cooperating with Microsoft since 1980s, and has formed a duopoly pattern in the global personal computer industry for 40 years.
Currently, the authorization methods of two domestic companies based on X86 core authorization are obtained through cooperation. Among them, Zhaoxin was established by a joint venture between Shanghai Liantou and Taiwan VIA Electronics. At that time, the former held 80% of the shares and the latter held 20% of the shares. Zhaoxin has obtained the authorization of X86. Haiguang Information established two joint ventures with AMD in 2016, obtained the Zen1 architecture license for AMD's high-end processor, and developed and designed the first generation of products on this basis.
Obtaining X86 authorization means that domestic CPU companies can directly join the Wintel camp, design CPUs with excellent performance, and successfully enter the consumer market. However, there is also a risk of being cut off by .
According to Haiguang Information's prospectus, in June 2019, Haiguang Information was included in the "Entity List" of the US "Export Control Regulations" by the US Department of Commerce's Industry and Security Bureau. The company's procurement and sales of "regulated items" with a high proportion of restricted technologies in the United States will be restricted. This means that after being included in the "entity list", AMD cannot provide subsequent technical services, and Haiguang cannot obtain the subsequent upgrade of AMD's subsequent architecture.
is similar to X86. The CPUs of Feiteng and Huawei are also authorized by ARM. Although the authorization can quickly design qualified or even excellent CPU products, it will also face restrictions on the use of subsequent architectures like Huawei.
Domestic CPU development main line
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Highlight information, Huawei, Shenwei and Feiteng have been included in the "entity list" by the United States in the past few years and cannot obtain relevant equipment and technologies. This is very unfavorable for domestic CPUs. Especially after Huawei was restricted by the United States, Hisi 's Kirin chip cannot continue iterative updates, and the server-oriented Kunpeng processor was also forced to press the pause key.
In the current environment of increasingly complex international relations, the supply chain has become increasingly fragile, and its independence and controllability have also become the core of major semiconductor countries and regions around the world.
The current development of domestic CPUs is based on the promotion of X86 and ARM architecture systems, and on the other hand, it is also actively supporting the local CPU industry to be independent and controllable. According to relevant sources, in relevant departments such as the government and banks, domestic CPUs are currently replacing foreign CPUs. This wave has started two years ago. It is expected that the penetration rate of domestic CPUs in government and enterprise office computers will continue to increase in the next few years.
From the purchase list of computers by the State Administration of Taxation in the first half of this year, this statement can also be indirectly confirmed. According to statistics from the global semiconductor observation, among the computers purchased by the State Administration of Taxation, there are four CPU suppliers including Feiteng, Haiguang Information, Zhaoxin, etc., and all suppliers are domestic CPU companies.
On the other hand, the development of the server industry is also an opportunity for domestic CPU companies, especially in the context of east-west calculations, the domestic CPU industry can gain greater development space in the server field. Taking Haiguang Information, which has been listed recently as an example, its major shareholder Inspur undertakes the construction of the Western (Chongqing) Science City Advanced Data Center, Tianfu and Chongqing Data Center clusters. It is one of the eight national hub nodes of the national integrated computing power network. Being an important service provider for East Data and West Computing will benefit the subsequent development of Haiguang Information.
Challenge
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In terms of policies and opportunities, domestic CPUs are ushering in a good development environment, but some challenges also need to be faced.
First, whether it is the design capabilities of instruction sets or microarchitectures, they all require long-term technical accumulation and a strong engineer culture. Silicon Valley leaders have a long historical precipitation and technical atmosphere in this regard. Overall, there is still a big gap between domestic CPUs and the leaders in terms of technical accumulation.
On the other hand, for enterprises that develop self-developed instruction sets, the establishment of the ecosystem is not a temporary achievement. In addition to technical reasons, whether users accept it, whether more developers participate, and jointly complete the iteration and innovation of the ecosystem. Relevant people said that domestic operating systems are currently in a huge gap with Windows and other areas, and there are frequent updates and upgrades within a week, which affects the user experience.
In addition, in terms of revenue, the size difference between domestic CPU companies and leaders. Leaders with huge shipments have more scale advantages and can reduce the R&D and manufacturing costs of a single chip. As a commodity for the consumer market, CPUs compete for performance and services, and price. This is the direction that domestic CPU companies need to work hard on.
From the past revenue of Haiguang Information and Loongson Zhongke, Haiguang Information's revenue in 2021 was 2.31 billion yuan, while Loongson Zhongke's revenue was about 1.2 billion yuan. In contrast, Intel's revenue was US$79.024 billion and AMD's revenue was US$16.434 billion. The revenue gap between domestic companies and international leaders is still huge.
summary
Overall, compared with before, domestic CPUs are developing rapidly, and the route is based on authorized research and development and self-developed instruction sets. However, today, when the global semiconductor supply chain is becoming increasingly fragile, independence is the underlying logic of the development of domestic CPUs.
