Observe | this core technology Sun Wenjian: how ARM architecture chips pry the traditional PC market

Apple's M1 chip "with fly" ARM architecture, leveraging the x86 and Intel traditional PC chip market dominance, ARM CPU chips into the high-performance computing market. This is a wake-up call for the x86 camp and an opportunity for entrepreneurs.

Sun Wenjian, founder of general intelligent computing chip start-up This Core Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (that is, "This Core Technology"), said in an interview with the surging news (www.thepaper.cn) a few days ago that the ARM instruction set is becoming more and more optimized, the ecological accumulation is becoming more and more mature, the process node has also reached 7 nanometers and 5 nanometers, and the CPU performance based on the ARM architecture itself has been rapidly developed. ARM instruction set chips have been popularized in mobile devices, embedded devices, it is also relying on the rapid development of computing power, power consumption, and ecology, is vigorously attacking the high-performance computing market. "The development of ARM technology has reached a point in time that it can seize the x86 market." In particular, Apple's M1 chip began to leverage the X86 camp's decades-long dominance in the traditional PC chip market in less than a year.

In 2021, leaving AMD (The American Chaowei Semiconductor Company) to co-found this core technology, Sun Wenjian said, the application of ARM with energy efficiency ratio to high-performance computing This technological change itself, we and the world's first-class chip manufacturers almost stand on a starting line.

Intel and AMD are two giants leading the desktop and server CPU markets, and various chip startups in China are emerging in an endless stream. Ye Guantai, a partner at Qiming Venture Capital, an investor in this core technology, told the surging news (www.thepaper.cn) that the development of CPU and the operating system are inseparable, and it is necessary to balance hardware innovation and the cultivation of China's software ecosystem. Apple has its own ecology, Android is an open ecosystem, and China should have a more open and pure software ecosystem.

"The high-end chip industry is actually an industry with very cruel global competition and real knives and guns." Ye Guantai said that if China Semiconductor is to succeed in the future, China must use global resources to continuously learn and make progress if it wants to become a world-class chip power.

ARM architecture chips leverage the traditional PC market

The CPU is the core of computing and control of computer systems, often referred to as the brain of a computer. The current CPU instruction set architecture can be divided into two categories: one is the complex instruction set (CISC) represented by x86, which occupies the desktop computer and server market; the other is the reduced instruction set (RISC) represented by ARM, MIPS, etc.

CISC improves the execution speed of the computer by setting some instructions with complex functions and replacing some common functions originally implemented by software with hardware instruction systems.

However, CISC deals with unequal length instruction sets, resulting in some unnecessary waiting, and the hardware integration and process requirements are also high. CISC type CPU contains a lot of unit circuits, in order to connect the circuits in series, its structural design is extremely complex, resulting in such computers CPU area and power consumption is very large.

RISC adopts equal-length instructions, which can divide an instruction into several processes or threads and hand it over to different processors for parallel processing, which is highly efficient and the hardware integration requirements are not high. RISC-type CPUs contain fewer unit circuits, which are directly manifested by the small CPU area and low power consumption.

In fact, these two types of architectures are fiercely competitive. In terms of complex instruction sets, the "Wintel Alliance" formed by Microsoft and Intel in the last century dominated the global PC market and promoted the Windows operating system to run on Intel CPU-based PCs. The streamlined instruction set was squeezed into the embedded market, gaining new market space after the rise of smartphones, and the ARM command system and Android operating system also formed an "AA ecosystem".

"x86 dominates the high-performance field, so notebooks, desktops, and servers are traditionally the world of x86, and the products in the field of low power consumption are arm's world." Sun Wenjian said that the ARM architecture dominates the mobile Internet and IoT field, with the popularity of AR/VR, smart cars, in the future digital world, arm architecture CPU will play an increasingly important role.

It is also relying on the rapid development of computing power, power consumption and ecology, and is vigorously attacking the high-performance computing market. "In fact, in the past decade, ARM has been trying to grab the x86 market, but because of product performance, process nodes, and ecology, these attempts have not yet seen a chance of success." But Sun Wenjian clearly feels that the development of ARM technology has reached a stage where it can meet the needs of high-performance computing and will inevitably compete with x86.

ARM instruction set is more and more optimized, ecological accumulation is becoming more and more mature, the process node has also reached 7 nanometers, 5 nanometers, and the CPU performance based on ARM architecture itself has been rapidly developed. ARM instruction set chips have been popularized in mobile devices, embedded devices, in the high-performance terminals, cloud computing and other fields in the early stage, international manufacturers have tested the waters of self-developed ARM chips, get rid of the dependence on Intel.

In the server space, Amazon's cloud computing subsidiary AWS has launched an AWS Graviton3 processor based on the ARM architecture. In terms of PCs, Apple will launch an ARM-based M1 chip in 2020, and mac notebooks equipped with M1 chips have a longer standby time and higher energy efficiency ratio than x86. Limited by 10W power consumption, the M1 chip can provide more than 2 times the CPU performance of traditional X86 notebook processors. In March this year, Apple released the M1 Ultra chip, once again subverting the personal computer industry.

In less than a year, Apple began to leverage the X86 camp's decades-long dominance in the traditional PC chip market. In the third quarter of 2021, ARM chips had a market share of about 8% in PC chips, while before the apple M1 chip went on the market, ARM's market share in PC chips in the third quarter of 2020 was only 2%. Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research, a market research firm, believes that the increase in PC market share of ARM architecture chips is mainly due to the sales of M1 chips.

The alarm bells for the x86 camp are also a rare opportunity

"This is a very big wake-up call for the x86 camp." Sun Wenjian said that for practitioners, this is a very rare opportunity.

Ye Guantai, a partner at Qiming Venture Capital, mentioned that before Apple released the M1 chip in 2020, the market generally believed that the dominance of Intel processors on the server and computer side was unshakable. "After breaking the situation of the Wintel alliance, apple M1 has allowed various manufacturers to see the realization of richer product differentiation."

"Several of our partners also recognized this opportunity, so they decided to jump out of a stable working environment to start a business." In October 2021, this core technology was established, before starting a business, Sun Wenjian was the head of AMD China BIG BU. At present, this core technology has completed the angel round and angel + round of tens of millions of dollars in financing. Among them, the angel round investor is Lenovo Venture Capital; the angel + round lead investor is Qiming Venture Capital, and the investors are Yuanhe Puhua, Yunjiu Capital, and Yunxiu Capital.

"The CPU has always been a top priority in all types of chips." Ye Guantai predicts that the CPU + GPU + NPU based on the ARM architecture, and then the system-level chip that adapts to the terminal characteristics may be the mainstream of the future market, and also gives CPU startups a special opportunity. "So we spent a lot of time last year to see if there was a team like that that could make this chip."

At present, this core technology has signed a contract to land in the Lingang New Area of Shanghai Free Trade Zone, with a total investment of 1.9 billion yuan in its headquarters and CPU R&D center project, which will build a high-performance CPU chip research and development project based on ARM architecture, mainly used in desktop notebooks, data servers and other fields.

This core technology plan focuses on terminal general intelligent computing, and the chip can be used in notebooks, desktops, high-end tablets, AR/VR and other scenarios. Since then, it has gradually broken through the bottleneck of existing solutions in the fields of meta-universe, edge computing, cloud computing, and high-performance general-purpose computing, and built a high-performance, low-power complete computing power platform with end-edge cloud integration.

"Putting ARM on PCs, servers, metaverses, this is a new market, a new application scenario." Sun Wenjian said that Apple has its own iOS system, and the M1 chip has also been ahead of the curve. On the non-iOS ecosystem, Qualcomm and MediaTek also see such new opportunities, "This is a very large global market opportunity, we have our advantage." ”

"We work closely with the system's OEMs and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), and we have been in-depth communication with these potential partners to understand what their demands are, reflect their demands in our chip definition and design process, and optimize them at the system level." Sun Wenjian said that this in-depth cooperative relationship can make the chip in the research and development, the system is also developed synchronously, shortening the time to market.

"The x86 and ARM camps have different players, and different manufacturers have accumulated experience, but the use of ARM for high-performance computing itself, we are almost on the same starting line with these big players." Sun Wenjian said that in the field of mobile phone chips, Qualcomm is the ceiling, x86 chips, and Intel and AMD are the ceiling. "In the future, we will have the opportunity to 'build a house' with Qualcomm and Microsoft, the ceiling is not yet available, and who can reach the ceiling is not certain."

Balance hardware innovation with software ecosystem cultivation

Throughout the world, Intel and AMD two giants lead the desktop and server CPU market, and domestic CPUs are struggling to catch up. In 2002, the first universal high-performance microprocessing chip "Loongson No. 1" with independent intellectual property rights in the mainland was born, ending the history of "coreless" Chinese computers. In 2015, the "China Core" Loongson CPU was used for the first time in the Beidou navigation satellite.

Nowadays, the instruction set used in the processors being developed in China is all-encompassing, including ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, SPARC, SW64, RISC-V, x86 and so on. However, Bao Yungang, a researcher at the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a director of the Chinese Computer Society, once wrote that behind the prosperity is the dispersion of the already scarce basic software development forces, resulting in compilation, operating system and other basic software developers and enthusiasts due to limited energy and can not take into account the optimization of all instruction sets, delaying the construction of independent ecology.

The so-called ecology, just like the Wintel alliance formed by Intel and Microsoft in the traditional PC market, the enterprises in the industrial chain work closely together, Intel leads the development of THE CPU, driving a number of PC hardware and manufacturing companies to adapt to it, Microsoft and partners work closely with x86 chips in terms of operating system and application software.

The development of CPU and the operating system are inseparable, Ye Guantai said, to balance hardware innovation and China's software ecosystem cultivation. Apple has its own ecology, Android is an open ecosystem, and China should have a more open and pure software ecosystem.

"A hardware system and a chip cannot provide consumers with computing power in isolation, and must be combined with operating systems and software." Sun Wenjian said that increasing investment in operating systems and applications can form an overall solution, and at the same time, we must participate in global ecological construction with an open mind.

"The high-end chip industry is an industry with very cruel global competition and real knives and guns." Ye Guantai said that if China Semiconductor is to succeed in the future, China must use global resources to continuously learn and make progress if it wants to become a world-class chip power.

"Wintel has monopolized the development of the entire desktop system over the past two or three decades, creating a strong ecosystem that influences consumer habits. But the alliance itself has also encountered a huge crisis, because consumers have already felt that the ecology lacks innovative experiences. Sun Wenjian said that Microsoft is seeking other partners with a more open mind and creating a new ecosystem to better meet consumer habits.

On the desktop side, Microsoft is ramping up the Window on ARM ecosystem. He said that in the future, the high-performance CPU chip based on arm architecture of this core technology will be adapted to different operating systems such as Windows, Android, and Linux. "We will actively adapt the operating system and integrate into the construction and development of the ecosystem."