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New russian 8-core CPU

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Re: New russian 8-core CPU

#21

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ten7 wrote: post #18
tribaal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it is purely political. Russia wants to be independent from the US for computers, because they fear (rightfully) American chips to be bugged. Having slow, expensive chips made in Russia is probably more interesting to certain agencies than fast and cheap American chips - or relying on typewriters :)

The Americans should probably fear bugged Russian processors too, right?

We are more afraid of counterfeit china-fabbed ASICs; even the US military has been burned by these. With more fabbing done in china, I guess the problems could get worse.

Re: New russian 8-core CPU

#22

Post by nmrm »

fzltrp wrote: post #10
tribaal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it is purely political. Russia wants to be independent from the US for computers, because they fear (rightfully) American chips to be bugged. Having slow, expensive chips made in Russia is probably more interesting to certain agencies than fast and cheap American chips - or relying on typewriters :)

China has a team developping a mips like architecture, with several produced iterations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson I don't know if Russia has the industry to mass produce it, but surely it has the skilled people to design it, and it may probably use foreign fabs for the remaining steps if necessary. As for the software, with an established ISA, they may quickly leverage exising open source solutions. Of…

If you're just worried about bugged hardware, why develop a new architecture? Can't you use your own clean room implementation of an existing architecture?

Re: New russian 8-core CPU

#23

Post by seanmcdirmid »

buster wrote: post #19
anovikov wrote: post #4

This is entirely hopeless - their development budget is 0.05% of that of Intel. So these will never leave drawing board to become usable product, and this is not a field rational to invest in - general purpose processors are olygopoly market with decades long learning curve worth too much. Even if someone puts hundreds of billions dollars and decades of time to become competitive, this will only diminish returns in t…

Like producing an ARM or Sparc or MIPS based design? Why would that be unimaginable? Qualcomm, AMD, Nvidia, Samsung and Co. do this. You're overestimating this and you're claiming that this processor would be new from the ground, which i don't see proof for. If it's a Sparc based design as others have claimed in this thread, it might become a slow, power-consuming processor, but it might work quite ok.

The ISA and even the logical architecture is easy. Laying it out and producing the chip is not, at all. You need a few billion $s investment in equipment AND people (you can poach the latter, the former is much harder to buy beyond outdated processes).

China is better off taking over Taiwan, who have much of both.

Re: New russian 8-core CPU

#24

Post by leaveyou »

conistonwater wrote: post #8
anovikov wrote: post #4

This is entirely hopeless - their development budget is 0.05% of that of Intel. So these will never leave drawing board to become usable product, and this is not a field rational to invest in - general purpose processors are olygopoly market with decades long learning curve worth too much. Even if someone puts hundreds of billions dollars and decades of time to become competitive, this will only diminish returns in t…

This would not be hopeless to the people who own the chip's design and production facilities, if the government also passes a law saying all government-related work must be done on computers with this specific chip installed. If the government can give a company a complete, enforceable monopoly, this would make at least some sense. Still, a total waste of resources.

In the long run, not only are they (the russians) going to use it in place of any foreign CPUs but lots of states which currently have no options would prefer to buy processors and software from the russians rather than the americans (Brazil, Iran, Syria, Cuba and many other "not aligned" countries). Russians/Soviets have a long history of having parallel development of technology (including special purpose microprocesors) and no one really considered that as a "waste of resources".

Re: New russian 8-core CPU

#25

Post by JoeAltmaier »

leaveyou wrote: post #24
conistonwater wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would not be hopeless to the people who own the chip's design and production facilities, if the government also passes a law saying all government-related work must be done on computers with this specific chip installed. If the government can give a company a complete, enforceable monopoly, this would make at least some sense. Still, a total waste of resources.

In the long run, not only are they (the russians) going to use it in place of any foreign CPUs but lots of states which currently have no options would prefer to buy processors and software from the russians rather than the americans (Brazil, Iran, Syria, Cuba and many other "not aligned" countries). Russians/Soviets have a long history of having parallel development of technology (including special purpose microproc…

But look at that list of customers - hardly rich nations. Total sales? Millions. Profit - around zero.

Re: New russian 8-core CPU

#26

Post by [deleted] »

anovikov wrote: post #4

This is entirely hopeless - their development budget is 0.05% of that of Intel. So these will never leave drawing board to become usable product, and this is not a field rational to invest in - general purpose processors are olygopoly market with decades long learning curve worth too much. Even if someone puts hundreds of billions dollars and decades of time to become competitive, this will only diminish returns in t…

[deleted]

Re: New russian 8-core CPU

#27

Post by rikacomet »

Come on, lets be neutral to this (politically). We should look at this as a new era. So what, If the Russian design today is more expensive or slower than Intel or anyone else.

Tomorrow, we might all be using Russian-made processors. History requires only a moment to shift the balance created over our short lifespan.

Besides, a little bit of competition between US and Russia has sometimes helped the humanity as a whole. Take the "Space Race" for example. A bit of egotistical competition meant that Apollo 11 landed on moon, many years early than if there was no such competition.

Re: New russian 8-core CPU

#29

Post by lnanek2 »

chillingeffect wrote: post #20
chdir wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are looking at it from an entirely different angle. You don't have to be Intel. Within 3-4 years you can have a neat processor comparable with current crop of mobile processors - assuming you have a good team & funding, no commercial pressure & can trust ARM. That's the time frame it takes to setup & go to market with a mobile processor company in silicon valley.

Sure but if you decide to not compete with Intel and instead compete with Qualcomm, then the same story applies: 3-4 years from now Qualcomm will have the Triple Dragon Q-Zap 500+, built in Intel's foundries at ~12nm, and the Russians will have this.

China has already shown interest in using domestic processors simply because they are domestic. Russia is probably the same. I don't think Qualcomm could be considered competition unless they suddenly turned Russian.

Re: New russian 8-core CPU

#30

Post by leaveyou »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #25
leaveyou wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the long run, not only are they (the russians) going to use it in place of any foreign CPUs but lots of states which currently have no options would prefer to buy processors and software from the russians rather than the americans (Brazil, Iran, Syria, Cuba and many other "not aligned" countries). Russians/Soviets have a long history of having parallel development of technology (including special purpose microproc…

But look at that list of customers - hardly rich nations. Total sales? Millions. Profit - around zero.

My opinion is, first, that this development is fueled for political and national security gains mainly and the commercial aspects of it are lower on the list. And second, if you try to measure the richness of those countries in dollars, they might be poor because they don't have dollars nor totally free access to markets where to obtain those dollars but still their natural resources, the work force and their political support (for the Russian interests) are valuable assets.
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