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Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

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Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#81

Post by mindslight »

mises wrote: post #25
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #20

The problem is that while RISC-V may deliver an excellent open ISA, there is no equivalent open solution for the GPU/display controller side. As I understand it, the GPU world is full of patents and dominated by just a few parties. I don't think there's something that Huawei or other Chinese manufacturers could easily start with and extend. So I can see RISC-V being ideal for applications that are not user facing or…

Let's be real, the Chinese have been stealing technology right and left for years. Losses number between $225 and $600 billion per year [0]. One in five companies has had its technology stolen [1]. They will just steal the tech. Or maybe they'll decide it's easier to work with AMD (they're already doing it on the CPU side [2]). This is not popular to say, but it is accurate and my statements are sourced. Feel free to…

What you say may be accurate, but it's also extremely biased by a paradigm of strict imaginary property... which isn't necessarily useful for understanding how things are going to play out.

Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#82

Post by Taniwha »

atdrummond wrote: post #57
kinghajj wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IPC means "instructions per cycle," so it's correct to divide the scores by frequency. Totally agree that in total performance, no realized BOOM chip comes close to mainstream Intel chips. I think Chris is working at Esperanto Technologies ( https://www.esperanto.ai/technology/); hopefully, they upstream performance improvements to the BOOM open-source repo.

I understand and I appreciate the test from an intellectual standpoint. But the IPC definition is orthogonal to meaningful performance benchmarking when I can't get real world equivalent clock frequencies of each processor type.

IPC "Instructions per cycle" is also "instructions per clock" - it's right there in the name "per clock" - it's a measure of architectural efficiency independent of clock speed.

I agree that being able to build something that runs at speed is equally important but IPC does have an exact meaning

Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#83

Post by zelon88 »

magicsmoke wrote: post #44
jsgo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As I understand it, the GPU world is full of patents and dominated by just a few parties. This would be a impediment typically, but considering they're blackballed already, how beholden are they to patents? Block imports? Think that's being done already. Requiring US companies to not do business with them? That's being done already. At this point, they just have to ride out the US/China trade war and then when thin…

Actually, what's to stop Huawei from just copying and incorporating whatever they need into their IC designs regardless of patents? I can imagine foreign foundaries refusing orders from Huawei to avoid manufacturing IP infringing designs, but are there foundaries in China that can produce the chips necessary while ignoring foreign patents? As an aside to that, how do foundaries know whether their client designs infri…

> Is there some sort of automated system that goes through the design files they are sent looking for areas of silicon that may contain infringing IP blocks?

I'm going to venture a solid guess that no such system exists in America simply because possessing the IP to match potentially infringing IP against would be problematic for the companies it's designed to protect.

Intel: "Hey GlobalFoundries, you're not one of our suppliers but here's the schematic for our latest chip. Please make sure nobody takes it!"

And I can all but GUARANTEE that doesn't exist in China. Unless of course it's to pick up any IP they might have missed when they stole it the first time.

Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#85

Post by ohyes »

Petrova wrote: post #84

Imagine the irony if Huawei turns into an open source company that is the best option for user privacy. Just by going with RISC-V they eliminate the issues with the Intel management engine. I'm curious what Huawei will do next.

That seems... unlikely.

Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#86

Post by Aperocky »

mises wrote: post #25
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #20

The problem is that while RISC-V may deliver an excellent open ISA, there is no equivalent open solution for the GPU/display controller side. As I understand it, the GPU world is full of patents and dominated by just a few parties. I don't think there's something that Huawei or other Chinese manufacturers could easily start with and extend. So I can see RISC-V being ideal for applications that are not user facing or…

Let's be real, the Chinese have been stealing technology right and left for years. Losses number between $225 and $600 billion per year [0]. One in five companies has had its technology stolen [1]. They will just steal the tech. Or maybe they'll decide it's easier to work with AMD (they're already doing it on the CPU side [2]). This is not popular to say, but it is accurate and my statements are sourced. Feel free to…

The methodology in the US study seem to suggest that Chinese are inable to do anything on their own and any technology that US company have that somehow China also got, is ALL counted as stolen.

That's a very fun verdict

Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#87

Post by flmontpetit »

wmf wrote: post #42
AlexeyBrin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Linux distro probably, at least initially.

Does Huawei sell Linux laptops today? Why not? Why would that change? If they don't think x86/Linux or ARM/Linux laptops are a good idea, why would RISC-V/Linux laptops be a good idea? People love to come up with fantasies and try to work backwards from them, but sometimes you really can't get there from here.

If Huawei adopts RISC-V then they drive RISC-V adoption to some indeterminate extent. When the market is sufficiently large, someone might consider RISC-V laptops to be a good idea. Even if it's "only" a company like Pine64.

You have a surplus of condescension and a lack of imagination.

Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#88

Post by atdrummond »

atdrummond wrote: post #57
kinghajj wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IPC means "instructions per cycle," so it's correct to divide the scores by frequency. Totally agree that in total performance, no realized BOOM chip comes close to mainstream Intel chips. I think Chris is working at Esperanto Technologies ( https://www.esperanto.ai/technology/); hopefully, they upstream performance improvements to the BOOM open-source repo.

I understand and I appreciate the test from an intellectual standpoint. But the IPC definition is orthogonal to meaningful performance benchmarking when I can't get real world equivalent clock frequencies of each processor type.

@Taniwha - I can't reply to you directly because we're so deep, thread-wise.

I appreciate and understand the discussion around IPC and how BOOM is a significant improvement on the state of the craft. I cut my early programming teeth by developing PPC and SPARC versions of my business' embedded software products. I'm a longtime fan of alternative architectures and keep up with the industry through attendance at events such as Hot Chips. I am familiar with the terminology here and am not disputing it or the findings of the benchmark.

My point was that using IPC in this way obfuscates how far these architectures have yet to go to be competitive in certain markets. Said market competitiveness was the original discussion topic up-thread.

Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#89

Post by detaro »

atdrummond wrote: post #88
atdrummond wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand and I appreciate the test from an intellectual standpoint. But the IPC definition is orthogonal to meaningful performance benchmarking when I can't get real world equivalent clock frequencies of each processor type.

@Taniwha - I can't reply to you directly because we're so deep, thread-wise. I appreciate and understand the discussion around IPC and how BOOM is a significant improvement on the state of the craft. I cut my early programming teeth by developing PPC and SPARC versions of my business' embedded software products. I'm a longtime fan of alternative architectures and keep up with the industry through attendance at events…

You can always click on the timestamp of a comment to got the comment permalink and reply from there.

Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#90

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

magicsmoke wrote: post #44
jsgo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As I understand it, the GPU world is full of patents and dominated by just a few parties. This would be a impediment typically, but considering they're blackballed already, how beholden are they to patents? Block imports? Think that's being done already. Requiring US companies to not do business with them? That's being done already. At this point, they just have to ride out the US/China trade war and then when thin…

Actually, what's to stop Huawei from just copying and incorporating whatever they need into their IC designs regardless of patents? I can imagine foreign foundaries refusing orders from Huawei to avoid manufacturing IP infringing designs, but are there foundaries in China that can produce the chips necessary while ignoring foreign patents? As an aside to that, how do foundaries know whether their client designs infri…

Infringement is detected by display of patented features or potentially reverse engineering relevant portions of an IC. There is no practical way to police infringement using the disparate array of design inputs mapped onto proprietary gate libraries.
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