On June 28, a netizen on social media platform X broke the news that Huawei is testing a new energy-efficient "TaiShan" (Taishan) small core, which significantly exceeds the performance of the Arm Cortex-A510 core by 75%.
If the news is true, then the next generation of Kirin chip CPU will achieve "pure localization".
The Mate 60 series of smartphones, released in August last year, is equipped with a Kirin 9000S processor, and although there has been great progress in localization, some of the technology still comes from overseas.
Among them, the CPU uses the self-developed Taishan large core + Taishan medium core + Arm Cortex-A510 small core, and the large core and medium core use Huawei's independent architecture, but the small core still uses Arm core.
Now, Huawei has upgraded the Arm architecture of the small core to the independent Taishan core, so the entire Kirin chip CPU link will become all the Taishan core, which will make the large, medium and small cores more coordinated.
It will not appear like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810: "One core is difficult, seven cores are watching".
At that time, after the Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU ran under high load for a long time, there was a serious heating phenomenon, some cores were directly shut down, and the remaining cores were dead in high load, resulting in an interesting situation of "one core is difficult, and seven cores are onlookers".
According to media reports, the new Taishan small core is similar to the small core in Apple's A-series processors, with extremely low power consumption, and the single-core score in the GeekBench 5 test is 350, which is 75% (200 points) ahead of the previous Arm public version of the small core.
If the revelation is true, then the CPU of Huawei's next-generation Kirin chip will fully use the self-developed Taishan core, and the performance will be further improved.
In terms of time, the Mate 70 series will be the first smartphones to be equipped with this chip.
In addition, due to the expiration of Intel's license to Huawei's supply, Huawei's PC products are once again facing the situation of "no cores available", so how can Huawei get rid of this situation, the only way is independent research and development.
It is rumored in the market that Huawei is developing a PC chip based on the Taishan core, which will benchmark Apple M3 in terms of performance, and will incorporate more AI functions to adapt to future AI PCs.
We see that Huawei's chips are becoming more and more autonomous, and in terms of architecture, it is gradually getting rid of its dependence on Arm, and will further get rid of its dependence on Intel's X86 architecture in the future, which is definitely a major progress.
What does architecture mean for chips?
Chip design is inseparable from architecture, which is the overall structure and organization of chip design, which is the process of effectively organizing and planning the function, performance, power consumption, layout and connection of the chip.
Chip architecture directly affects the ease of chip design, cost, power consumption, and market competitiveness.
The chip architecture includes the hardware architecture and the software architecture, the hardware architecture includes the processor core, cache, memory, input and output interfaces, etc., and the software architecture includes the operating system, programming model, instruction set, etc.
The architecture of the global chip is controlled by Arm and Intel.
Arm's reduced instruction set architecture, with relatively simple functions, small execution cycles, and low power consumption, is ideal for mobile and embedded devices. At present, more than 1/4 of the world's electronic devices are using ARM technology, and the proportion of smartphones used has reached more than 95%.
Intel's X86 architecture is a complex instruction set, with stronger and more stable overall performance, but at the same time, it also consumes more energy, making it more suitable for desktop computers and supercomputing.
At present, the market share of x86 architecture in the PC and server market is as high as 91%, and the remaining 8% is Arm architecture, and domestic architecture accounts for less than 1%. (Loongson, Shenwei, domestic RISC-V chips, the share is less than 1%, in a state of ignorance)
In general, the global chip architecture is monopolized by Arm and Intel, and RISC-V, although open source and free, began at the University of California, Berkeley, and is controlled by the RISC Open Source Foundation.
The RISC Open Source Fund has repeatedly emphasized that RISC-V is free, open source, and not restricted by any country or individual, but who can guarantee that RISC-V will still be open source and free in the future when it grows and its market share increases?
Therefore, taking precautions, independent research and development is still the key, the key to the "survival" of domestic chips one day in the future, and our courage to say "NO" in the face of injustice.
Now Huawei has taken a step forward in its independent architecture, getting rid of Arm in terms of chip core, and at the same time, Huawei has also independently developed the CPU instruction set - Lingxi.
Independent core, independent instruction set, which basically solves the chip architecture problem, plus the independent HarmonyOS operating system, is really amazing.
Even if Arm no longer authorizes the latest V9 architecture, and Intel does not license the X86 architecture, Huawei can still continue to develop chips, and continue to improve its autonomy, along with creating new technologies, such as hyper-threading technology on mobile terminals.
In the GPU field, Huawei has the Ascend series chips, the 5G baseband has the Baron series, and the base station chips have the Tiangang series.
Alibaba has developed rapidly in RISC-V, with the Xuantie series, the Swordless series and so on.
Loongson Zhongke continues to make efforts in the field of computer CPU and server CPU, and the self-developed LoongArch architecture has withstood the test of the market, and will continue to make efforts in performance and ecology in the future.
It can be said that the rapid update and iteration of domestic chips in terms of autonomy will form a new pole in the future, and at that time, two major chip industry chains will also be formed in the world: the Western chip industry chain and the Chinese chip industry chain.
China's chip industry chain has begun to take shape, whether it is chip design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, or EDA, semiconductor equipment, semiconductor materials have been localized, and the ecology is also improving.
What domestic chips need to do is to continue to update and iterate on deeper autonomy, higher performance, and a more complete ecology, which takes time and endurance.
Many people expect domestic chips to achieve counterattack and surpass overnight, which is impossible, Intel in the United States was founded in 1968 and has developed for 56 years; ARM also has a history of more than 30 years, and ASML has a history of 40 years.
And many domestic chips were created after 2000, Loongson, Huawei HiSilicon, Shanghai Microelectronics, Huada Jiutian and so on, a total of only 20 years of development, just want to surpass others for forty or fifty years?
What's more, overseas chip companies have applied for patents first, set up patent thresholds, and blocked and suppressed us in terms of technology, parts, and equipment, and the development environment for domestic chips is much worse.
Therefore, what domestic chips need to do is not to surpass overnight, but to transcend in a "marathon" style, lay a solid foundation, step by step, and finally achieve transcendence counterattack.
Huawei has set an example and played a leading role, other chip companies have confidence, and the entire domestic chip has hope.
I am a science and technology master, welcome to discuss!