Chinese semiconductor thread II

[huemens]

Yet none of Huawei's core designs use ARM v9. Unlike Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chips which use ARM v9.2a.

Neither does Qualcomm's own designed chips (Oryon cores). Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is ARM v9 simply because it uses off-the-shelf ARM Cortex cores (In that way Kirin 9000s also have v9 on their small cores, which are Cortex). For Android apps this is meaningless because Android apps run as ARM v8 even on a v9 chip. v9 is a superset of v8. All the latest Qualcomm chips that uses their own designed cores are v8.

As I told you in a previous response few months ago, Qualcomm actually disables the SVE instructions on their v9 Smartphone SoCs, because there is currently no use for it in the Android ecosystem. The highest ARM ABI still officially supported by Android is ARM v8.0 from more than a decade ago.

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[huemens]

Kirin 9000s has four Armv9 Cortex-A510 cores and I have never heard of mixing Armv8 and v9 on the same SoC.

There's no issue with mixing because all the Apps run as v8.0 even on Qualcomm/Mediatek chips. v9 is not a completely new instruction set. It is just an extension to v8, so it has all the instructions of v8. Not so different from any of the extensions ARM has added since v8.0. They released 9 extensions from v8.1 to v8.9. They launched the next extension as v9. They could have simply called the v9 as v8.10, but launching it as a major version allows them to negotiate new contracts with customers, charge more fees, etc. From an Apps point of view it is just a v8.0 core and they don't touch the extra v9 instructions or even the many extensions from v8.1 to v8.9.

The device manufacturer can of course take advantage of it. If they want they can use the extra v9 instructions to optimize something on their customized Android OS. But the Apps that gets shipped to Google Play Store are v8.0 at max.

 

[OptimusLion]

The Nanjing University team released a 1nm node two-dimensional semiconductor transistor at the International Electron Devices Conference

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[JPaladin32]

There's no issue with mixing because all the Apps run as v8.0 even on Qualcomm/Mediatek chips. v9 is not a completely new instruction set. It is just an extension to v8, so it has all the instructions of v8. Not so different from any of the extensions ARM has added since v8.0. They released 9 extensions from v8.1 to v8.9. They launched the next extension as v9. They could have simply called the v9 as v8.10, but launching it as a major version allows them to negotiate new contracts with customers, charge more fees, etc. From an Apps point of view it is just a v8.0 core and they don't touch the extra v9 instructions or even the many extensions from v8.1 to v8.9.

The device manufacturer can of course take advantage of it. If they want they can use the extra v9 instructions to optimize something on their customized Android OS. But the Apps that gets shipped to Google Play Store are v8.0 at max.

It's not just ISA compatibility but licensing requirements from Arm. Arm does not allow you to have an arbitrary mix of cores on the same SoC even if the ISA is compatible. Back in the old days you were not allowed to re-use Cortex-A77 license with Cortex-X1, and you had to get an A78 license if you wanted a mid core alongside X1 (although there were technical reasons, too). There are still restrictions now, like you are not allowed to have Cortex-X4m without also buying a Cortex-X925 or X4 for your SoC. In both situations the ISA isn't a problem.

I remember I was told years ago that we couldn't re-use Armv8 IPs with new v9 cores. I think that still applies because the new Cortex-A5XX is just a nightmare to work with and really disappointing as an A55 replacement. If I were Huawei and could re-use Armv8 IPs there really isn't reason to buy A510 over their existing A55 license, unless their own IPs moved to v9 and Arm license required them to do so as I understand it. But anyway, the best way is for me to get my new phone with Kirin 9020 and try to probe the CPU and see what I can find. That should answer the question once and for all.

 

[tokenanalyst]

Toward a storage ring coherent light source based on an angular dispersion-induced microbunching scheme​

​

Abstract​

The combination of reversible angular dispersion-induced microbunching (ADM) and the rapid damping storage ring provides a storage-ring-based light source with the capability to produce longitudinal coherent radiation with a high repetition rate. This paper presents a prototype design for a test facility based on the study by Jiang et al. [Sci. Rep. (2022), 12, 3325]. The modulation–demodulation section is inserted into a long straight section of the storage ring instead of a bypass line, which poses great challenges for the optimization of the nonlinear dynamics of the storage ring. However, this design avoids the challenging injection and extraction system connecting to the bypass line. To utilize mature laser technology and reduce the difficulty of the reversible ADM lattice design, we use a long-wavelength 1030 nm seed laser. In the simulation, we achieved 20th harmonic radiation with a bunching factor of about 7.2%. The growth rate of vertical emittance and energy spread of the electron beam for a single pass are about 11% and 0.02%, respectively. When the energy of the electron beam is 800 MeV and two sets of damping wigglers are employed, the damping time in the vertical plane is reduced to 8.31 ms. This results in a 438 kHz repetition rate of the coherent radiation at the new equilibrium state.​

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[huemens]

It's not just ISA compatibility but licensing requirements from Arm. Arm does not allow you to have an arbitrary mix of cores on the same SoC even if the ISA is compatible. Back in the old days you were not allowed to re-use Cortex-A77 license with Cortex-X1, and you had to get an A78 license if you wanted a mid core alongside X1 (although there were technical reasons, too). There are still restrictions now, like you are not allowed to have Cortex-X4m without also buying a Cortex-X925 or X4 for your SoC. In both situations the ISA isn't a problem.

That's all about licensing terms. ARM has varying licensing terms with different customers, especially those with Architectural level licenses and the fact that Huawei is doing it shows that they are allowed to do so. Anyway, in this case Huawei is not mixing two different types of Cortex cores. They are only using one type of Cortex cores. The other cores are Taishan. The Taishan cores are Huawei's own cores and has nothing to do with ARM except for the fact that those cores are designed to ARM ISA, which they are allowed to do because they own an Architectural level license.

If I were Huawei and could re-use Armv8 IPs there really isn't reason to buy A510 over their existing A55 license

They could have chosen it for performance reasons. ARM's marketing says A510 has 35% performance improvement over A55.

But anyway, the best way is for me to get my new phone with Kirin 9020 and try to probe the CPU and see what I can find.

It was reported that all cores in Kirin 9020 are now Taishan. They got rid of the Cortex cores, which was one of the reasons for the performance improvement in 9020. If you want to test the mixed core chip you have to get one of the older ones like Kirin 9000s.

 

[tphuang]

part of EDWC project. Qingyang data center has now 51 EFLOPS and aiming to reach 100 EFLOPS next year

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1870586088928284763

 

[LanceD23]

Huawei's 14nm Fab at Song Shan lake has a capacity of 10K wafers monthly. Its yield is about 65% .
what product is Huawei manufacturing over there?

 

[gelgoog]

It is kind of obvious that to simplify the OS an SoC will run with the largest possible common subset of the ISA of the cores in it.
If some cores in the SoC are ARM v9 and others ARM v8 then the OS will treat the whole thing as ARM v8. This way you can move threads at runtime around the cores without much issue.

As for the Qualcomm Oryon cores those are presently pending litigation between Qualcomm and ARM Ltd. Remember that those come from Qualcomm's Nuvia acquisition. Development went through some contortions. From what I understand Qualcomm never had an ARM ISA license, it was Nuvia which had the license. ARM Ltd. does not think Qualcomm is entitled to inherit that license.

Huawei's 14nm Fab at Song Shan lake has a capacity of 10K wafers monthly. Its yield is about 65% .
what product is Huawei manufacturing over there?

AFAIK the Huawei Songshan Lake facility is an R&D campus. I never heard of it having any sort of chip fabrication facility.

 

[tokenanalyst]

National Automotive Chip Quality Inspection and Testing Center is under construction​

The State Administration for Market Regulation has approved Shanghai to set up a national automotive chip quality inspection center to help build the localization of automotive chips and the application ecosystem. Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation approved Shanghai Motor Vehicle Inspection and Certification Technology Research Center Co., Ltd. to set up a national automotive chip quality inspection and testing center. At present, my country's automotive chip industry and products are facing the huge challenge of "accelerating vehicle installation and application, and driving chip development".
The existing detection technology system is difficult to support the installation and adaptation of automotive chips, lacks a standard system and detection capabilities for in-loop testing and functional safety verification under complex circuit logic environments, and chips often have quality problems during vehicle installation and application. It is urgent to establish trust in the quality of the automotive chip supply chain and accelerate the construction of my country's automotive chip application ecology. It is reported that the National Automotive Chip Quality Inspection and Testing Center will, based on industry needs, establish a testing system to support automotive chip installation and adaptation, actively play the role of third-party technical institutions, build an industrial ecological alliance, promote upstream and downstream supply chains to reach technical agreements, assist companies in establishing quality assurance systems and product quality monitoring mechanisms, promote the establishment of a responsibility mechanism for broad compliance with supply chain quality, and promote a significant increase in the localization rate of automotive chips. Integrated circuits and automobiles are two major industries in Shanghai. Automotive chips are a combination of the two industries, automotive and integrated circuits.
They are the key to strengthening the autonomy and control of the industrial chain and supply chain, and promoting the transformation and development of the automotive industry towards electrification, networking, and intelligence. The establishment of the National Automotive Chip Quality Inspection Center in Shanghai will help improve the quality of my country's automotive chips, accelerate the installation and application of independent chips, and complete an important part of the automotive chip industry ecosystem.​

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