
China Begins Production Of x86 Processors Based On AMD's IP - gscott
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-zen-x86-processor-dryhana,37417.html
======
Roritharr
Interesting Move. If you base your assumptions on Peter Zeihan and his Book
the Absent Superpower, this would basically be China trying to get as much
manufacturing out of the US as possible to force it to be a customer of
Chinese goods indefinitely and secure access to the US consumers. In this case
it obviously has also strategic value, as China can also securely supply his
military with "clean" chips.

I can only recommend watching one of his talks on YT for a different pov
regarding world politics:
[https://youtu.be/feU7HT0x_qU](https://youtu.be/feU7HT0x_qU)

~~~
baybal2
>Peter Zeihan

Man, he cooks his digits and "facts" haard. What is his point? He pulls out
his "revelations" just to advance himself as think tank academician/strategy
consultant

~~~
Roritharr
Might be the case, I stumbled upon him just two weeks ago but didn't find much
critic of his work. I'd love to hear any.

~~~
dmichulke
FWIW, I watched one of his videos also just 2 weeks ago:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feU7HT0x_qU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feU7HT0x_qU)

He describes that the US is now in a position to isolate itself and will do
so. While I largely would assume that's a valid prediction, I believe he
forgot to mention one fact:

The USD will (in the scenario he described) lose a lot of value (why should
foreigners hold US debt or currency in his scenario?) to a degree that will
lead to major calamities in the US. Those in turn affect the politicians in a
way, that usually leads to scapegoating others (the Chinese, the Europeans,
the Russians, ...) and possibly even to a distraction war (you know, show
strength, punish the others who really deserve it, we all must stand together
now, ...).

That whole thing will be a major counterforce to the isolationism he predicts.

------
some_account
This is really good for the consumers, since the Chinese are free to innovate
instead of waiting for Intel.

Lately they have been coming out with really good things. The Matebook X Pro
is amazing and can easily compete with Dells latest offerings, and Deepin
Linux 15.6 has its own very modern user interface that makes it very enjoyable
to use. Finally a linux distribution with a good sense of western style and
performance, and it comes from China of all places.

Its important to be careful of spyware however, but that goes for American
software as well. There is plenty of evidence that NSA is spying on everybody,
and probably has access to most Americans emails and web habits already.

~~~
simonh
Well if the US does it too, that's alright then.

Caveat, I'm a European (well a Brit, so almost European) and I'm appalled by
US and yes British violations of privacy and surveillance overreach. Things
like the threats to cripple or ban private use of strong encryption are
appallingly damaging and misguided.

However nations with an elected government accountable to the people doing
this stuff is one thing. We still have the right and mechanisms to protest and
these protests have frequently made a real difference. strong encryption of
private communications is till legal and threats to it have gone nowhere. The
fact that governments from multiple political groups, in multiple countries
have looked at this and decided that the benefits to their electorate outweigh
the dangers offers at least some comfort. It's at least possible that they are
right, although I would prefer much stronger checks and balances.

Pervasive active harvesting, analysis, intervention, censorship and subsequent
punishments of 'private' communication by a totalitarian state, with the open
goal of enforcing ideological obedience is not the same thing, and it's not
ok. At all.

~~~
candiodari
The issue with your comment is that it's absurd. You are complaining about US
overreach, so presumably your basis for judgement should be the situation in
the UK.

Does the UK do mass-surveillance of it's own and foreign citizens, on UK soil
and outside ? Yes [1]

Strong encryption of private communications is NOT legal in the UK. You have
to give the police access when they request it and you cannot use the rights
you have in the US to avoid giving this access [2]. (unless you consider
strong encryption stuff where you have to make all keys available to the
police, border guard, gchq, foreign intelligence services, and others still
strong encryption. I don't)

The other huge difference is that the UK refuses to be accountable for their
mass surveillance afterwards. In the US a big demand is that there is a paper
trail for spying, to the person being spied upon. Granted, this may be buried
in something like a phone contract for mass-targeting. When they target you
specifically, however, you will be notified (afterwards, if the judge so
decides, but can even be beforehand), and failure to do this makes the spying
illegal. Furthermore, this gives private individuals and companies the option
to sue to have the police/FBI/NSA/DEA/... explain themselves (and more
generally the US state).

In the UK however:

1) No notification is given to the person being spied upon. The state just
does it.

2) There is no recourse. If you were spied upon because a police officer
wanted to be your boyfriend and needed to know where your actual boyfried was
to beat him up, that's legal. [3] (yes, I realize these guys got fired,
however, their actions were ruled legal)

3) If anyone in the UK takes the side of the person being spied upon, whether
an internet provider, an application provider (ie. outlook.com/fb/gmail/...),
they will be vigorously pursued and punished for that. This is highly illegal.

4) The UK has cooperation treaties (ie. EU treaties, and others) that let
police officers in ~70 countries spy on British citizens (I heard that these
treaties were used to install a phone tap, yes really, on Angela Merkel's
phone. Yes, that Angela Merkel. The utter incompetence is baffling in it's
scope. And yes, the guy (an officer) did this as a joke and got fired for it)

So to say I don't understand your criticism here massively understates the
situation ... Obviously, as a UK citizen you've got some more local problems
to sort out before you criticize the US.

In reality, the UK/EU is pushing these news articles and blowing up
cooperation for EXACTLY the opposite reason : they don't want increased
privacy for people, they want to further reduce it. They want the US to honor
spying requests without respecting US law. They don't want Facebook to ask
"can you explain why this is really necessary" when a police officer is asking
for the exact location of EU citizens. They don't want to give reasons, and
they certainly don't want the person to be told afterwards (and potentially
sue them). They want full FB and instagram chat logs in every divorce case.
They want ever single email a person ever sent in every commercial dispute.
They want every police force and secret service in Europe to have access to
every Europeans every mail, immediately, with zero oversight or tracking, and
especially without any paper trail available to their victims. THAT's what
Europe is fighting for.

THAT's what they're calling "US surveillance overreach".

Well, that, and the fact that the US successfully recorded some rather high
level conversations between Merkel and Macron and managed to get caught doing
it. In other words, they're incompetent, and angry. And of course, that's the
US's fault (despite, of course, that Germany was also caught attempting to bug
Obama, and caught having successfully bugged several high level officials
before getting caught). And of course, they're angry for Trump getting elected
(if you don't believe me, watch this [4], and listen to the questions).

That's why there is this campaign of "the US is horrible on privacy". There is
"no cooperation". But, sadly, the US is the champion of privacy in this
particular fight.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_United_Kingdom)

[2] [https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/25/traveler-who-refused-to-
gi...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/25/traveler-who-refused-to-give-device-
passwords-to-police-found-guilty-of-obstruction-in-uk-court/)

[3] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371833/20-police-
of...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371833/20-police-officers-
dismissed-using-force-spy-neighbours-partners.html)

[4]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y70LrlzrkNk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y70LrlzrkNk)

~~~
knorker
Agreed. The UK is very clearly the least free of all "western" countries.
You're only touching on government surveillance. There are other aspects too,
like super injunctions.

I say that as someone with a UK passport.

~~~
candiodari
Most of the problems are actually EU-wide, even including a few not-quite-EU
countries.

I wonder why this is being downvoted so badly.

~~~
knorker
Yeah, for freedom of speech you can simply see where Nazi websites are hosted.
It's not the EU.

But the UK really stands out within the EU.

~~~
SEJeff
I don't think that is related. A lot of the Nazi websites are hosted via
HostKey in Russia. In fact, some of these websites were used to start "white
power" rallies in the US just to stir up the hornets nest. I'm a fan of free
speech, but am generally against Nazis as a concept. We fought a war over this
:)

~~~
b4eEX
But it is. If people/their government are not prepared to defend what's
unpleasant for them, it means they're not entirely dedicated to free speech in
Voltaire's sense (“I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the
death your right to say it”). Who knows, what minority opinion will they
decide to ban next?

~~~
s73v3r_
I don't think anyone should be dedicated to Voltaire's sense of free speech,
as it's a ludicrously absolutist position. I'm fairly certain that in
Voltaire's time, they didn't have coordinated harassment/doxxing campaigns on
social media.

~~~
knorker
You don't think (coordinated) harassment existed before social media?

Please.

(and doxxing is not about expressing your thoughts and ideas)

~~~
s73v3r_
"You don't think (coordinated) harassment existed before social media?"

Where on earth did I say that? You cannot deny, however, that it is far more
prevalent.

And that doesn't stop people from crying "censorship" when people who dox get
banned from Twitter.

~~~
knorker
Here:

> I'm fairly certain that in Voltaire's time, they didn't have coordinated
> harassment/doxxing campaigns on social media.

Harassment: Existed.

Doxxing: Off topic. Not thoughts and opinions. (Voltaire said "disagree". You
don't agree or disagree about someone's home address or real name)

Social media: We live in a more connected world. In a less connected world the
same effects would be had in your local community.

> And that doesn't stop people from crying "censorship" when people who dox
> get banned from Twitter.

Straw man. Also publishing other people's copyrighted works is not censorship.

You're changing the topic. doxxing (which you have now brought up TWICE) has
nothing to do with it.

------
baybal2
Also, It is not true that China never had own from scratch designed "cores."
It had not one, but like 4 different families, with one being their own custom
ISA (iCube.)

I as a person who meets people from Qinghua university group on 1 in every 3
industry events, I can tell. The _one and only_ reason the huge lump of money
was dished on yet another "national" chip is because the "national OS" is
still is the pirated Win XP from around 2005. And according to opinion of
augustly officials, no performance metrics command merit if the chip can't run
it.

There is one individual from Unigroup who is the sole person responsible for
bringing "the national chip" to the MofCom on a golden platter. At around
2010, MofCom announced near one hundred grants available for the chip maker
who can make that chip. NuFront was one of contenders (The company's sole
purpose originally was to contend for that huge grant.) Their meeting with
that guy was very short. They went to him to deliver presentation about the
product. Midway, he interrupted them and asked this question: "can it run
Windows?," and the next words in their conversation were "no" and "bye"

~~~
skissane
> the "national OS" is still is the pirated Win XP from around 2005

I wonder why China doesn't adopt a national policy of moving to an OS it can
control, such as Linux? (Possibly in conjunction with Wine for backward
compatibility, or if they want something more Windows-like, maybe ReactOS.)

Whatever limitations an open source OS stack may have, surely with enough
funding those limitations could be overcome, and surely the Chinese government
can afford to fund that.

~~~
baybal2
They certainly tried. But I can imagine that it all also broke down when "some
official" factor kicked it.

First builds of red flag linux were copying WinXP "pixel for pixel," most
likely just to prevent yet another official like that asking something like
"where is the start button?"

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/14/china_shutters_wind...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/14/china_shutters_windows_rival_red_flag_linux/)

------
bitwize
> But here's where things get tricky. AMD holds a 51 percent stake in HMC,
> while Tianjin Haiguang Holdings owns 49%. Meanwhile, AMD owns 30% of Hygon
> and Tianjin Haiguang Holdings owns 70 percent.

> HMC owns the x86 IP and ends up producing the chips, which satisfies the AMD
> and Intel x86 cross-licensing agreements because the IP remains with a
> company owned primarily by AMD. But AMD provides the IP with the
> understanding that the company will use it to design its "own products
> specifically tailored to the needs of the Chinese server market." That
> requires quite a bit of maneuvering given the restrictions of AMD's x86
> cross-licensing agreement with Intel.

> To stay within the legal boundaries, HMC licenses the IP to Hygon, which
> designs the x86 chips and then sells the design back to HMC.

> HMC then employs a foundry to fab the end product (likely China Foundries or
> TSMC). Confusingly, HMC then transfers the chips back to Hygon (the same
> company that designed them), which then sells the Dhyana processors.

Let's call this what it is -- IP laundering.

------
gscott
I feel this is important, one of the things China has felt they have been held
back on is chip production, especially something like the x86 and x64 chips.
Now they are good to go on something that is a national priority. They can
produce hundreds of thousands of cpu's as many as they want now with no
limitations from the US Government since now they can do it locally.

~~~
gaius
_one of the things China has felt they have been held back on is chip
production_

Really? They have a decent MIPS story there, have had for a while.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawning_Information_Industry#D...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawning_Information_Industry#Dawning_6000)

They could literally have ignored x86, but they are making the same strategic
blunder the UK made in the 1980s

~~~
userbinator
Yes, MIPS is everywhere in all sorts of consumer devices like routers and
cheap Android phones/tablets, but it lacks performance, and also compatibility
with existing software.

~~~
gaius
See the second link - they are using MIPS for HPC so it’s performance must be
adequate

~~~
seanmcdirmid
MIPS had been used in HPC applications in the past. It’s just an ISA, like x86
or ARM, and (these days) has less to do with performance than the CPU
architecture and process user to FAB it. Heck, they could even bring back
68k’s and make them work well enough.

~~~
phire
Yep, all you need to do is build a massive out-of-order superscalar pipeline
with 8 to 10 execution ports and a very large reorder buffer (150 to 200
uops). And idealy toss in hypertreadding.

Intel has done it with x86, IBM have done it with POWER, AMD have done it with
x86 (more or less independently to Intel), Sun/Oracle have done it with SPARC,
Apple have done it with ARM and most recently it looks like ARM's Cortex A76
is joining the league.

All these designs look very similar, they are basically variatins on the same
archtechure with different front ends.

------
christianbryant
Plus for this manufacturer, the Hygon Dhyana CPUs should work under GNU/Linux:

[http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1806.1/00730.html](http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1806.1/00730.html)

------
throwaway2048
Seems pretty incredible AMD sold the keys to the kingdom for 1/4th the x86
market for 300millionish.

I'm sure the shenanegans where they get pushed out of china are going to occur
after a few years, just like they happened to tons of tech companies before
them after they got raided for IP with joint partnerships...

They never had much penetration into China to begin with, maybe they consider
it worth it to cut down Intel's influence.

Seems super dangerous if china starts exporting the chips however.

~~~
spacenick88
Afaik they get per unit royalties too

~~~
castratikron
I'm sure they pay that.

[https://www.npr.org/2018/07/06/626683457/judge-orders-
chines...](https://www.npr.org/2018/07/06/626683457/judge-orders-chinese-wind-
turbine-maker-to-pay-59-million-for-stealing-trade-sec)

------
ksec
What I don't understand, is how or why this model works "only" in China as it
stays within the x86 license boundary.

Why hasn't Apple, Microsoft Xbox, Sony PS 4 use this route for their semi
custom SoC?

~~~
MaxBarraclough
Xbox One and PS4 use relatively ambitious chips, integrating an AMD multicore
x86-64 CPU, with and AMD GPU.

This project seems a good deal more humble: as far as I can tell from the
article, they're making single-core 32-bit x86 CPUs, and they aren't touching
AMD's GPU solutions.

I imagine it's far easier to get AMD to agree to sign off the licensing
agreement given that it doesn't really compete with them. Also it looks far
easier to pull off, so there's less reason to have AMD themselves put the work
in.

~~~
aoeusnth1
Where did you get the idea that these were single core? It said they were
using EPYC designs, which are many-core high end server chips (like Xeon).

~~~
MaxBarraclough
Oops, I missed that.

So it's going to be multicore x86-64 then.

------
api
I have a sense that what happened to Detroit is about to happen to Silicon
Valley. Detroit once had some of the highest median salaries (and home values)
in the nation. Then Japan came and decimated what had become a fat and lazy
domestic auto industry. China could easily do this to American chip makers,
removing a key cornerstone of Silicon Valley's tech leadership.

Meanwhile a lot of newer innovators in areas like software and custom hardware
have already gone elsewhere. People are rationally concluding that the
benefits of Silicon Valley are outweighed by its insane cost of living and
that those same benefits can be obtained in other ways, so they're doing their
work elsewhere. I personally know of several startups that maintain fake
Silicon Valley mailing addresses while being located in places like Southern
California, Denver, Indianapolis, or Nashville. They keep the address for its
silly prestige value since if it says "Palo Alto" on your contact page people
who aren't knowledgeable think it means you're cutting edge.

Another big benefit of the Bay Area -- namely one of the most interesting
cultural environments in the world -- has also been largely priced out and
decimated by the local real estate bubble. That eliminates yet another draw.
People might pay a lot to live in a fascinating city full of cutting edge
culture and interesting people but not to live in a glorified office park.

I see a future SV tech scene that's largely hollowed out and dominated by
social media, an industry toward which the public is becoming increasingly
hostile as they realize it's all about surveillance and mass manipulation.
Chips go to China and newer startups go to cities with saner costs of living.

~~~
raincom
SV has a good weather, which can keep the real estate bubble.

~~~
api
So do loads of other more affordable places.

------
whazor
As far as I know, China does not possess the newest semiconductor machines.
Either it will create these chips via TSMC, or they will use a lower
resolution and less powerful chips. I wonder if they can make something
competitive.

~~~
skrebbel
I'm sure ASML will happily sign them up as a customer.

~~~
TheArcane
Up until an American company acquires it like they did with NXP and
booking.com.

------
lgvln
This is going to be interesting. Such a partnership will avoid another ZTE-
like scenario so this is a win for China. However this is probably going to
place AMD in the crosshairs of the US administration. Let's see how this turns
out for AMD.

~~~
infocollector
How does this compare to the US Government stopping Intel in 2015? Does this
wipe out everything good we have heard from AMD in recent times?

------
bdz
Here is the Linux kernel patch
[https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10455791/](https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10455791/)

------
scruffyherder
Are they going to hit retail shelves or what? It'll be interesting to see if
they do.

I was interested in getting one of those Chinese MIPS machines (based on the
3A2000), but they seem to have all but evaporated.

~~~
voxadam
Whatever happened to Loongson?

~~~
scruffyherder
Don't know. I have yet to actually see anywhere to buy one. It's all email or
phone and I've done both from China and Hong Kong and never got a reply.

~~~
monocasa
They exist; Richard Stallman has one in a laptop.

------
plumeria
Backdoor Inside™

~~~
coolspot
This time it is their’s backdoor at least.

Intel AMT and AMD TrustZone were suspected as US intelligence backdoors for
long time.

Countries like Russia prohibit use of foreign CPUs in any strategic and
military application. I bet China doesn’t run Intel/AMD CPUs in government
offices too.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Nobody who knows how AMT or TrustZone works thinks that they are a US
intelligence backdoor.

China runs Intel/AMD CPUs in government and so does Russia.

~~~
chupasaurus
You missed the part about "strategic and military use" for Russia, don't know
well about chinese rules.

------
orbifold
I really don't get why the West is gifting all this technology to a
competitor. By now it should be clear that in all cases of these joint
ventures the only goal is to eventually clone the product. They have ripoffs
of high-speed trains, military equipment and so on. I guess this is also how
Japan caught up after WWII, but there the US has still ~60000 soldiers on the
ground and significant long term ties.

~~~
some_account
You say ripoff, but its more like improvements of products. Everybody steals
ideas from everybody, thats how it works. Otherwise cars would only exist in
the US.

Japan was winning that war until US dropped the atomic bombs and killed a lot
of innocent people. Im not sure how that is something to be proud of.

~~~
michaelmrose
Between 1937 and 1945 Japan invaded china massacring hundreds of thousands of
civilians and joined a monster in his murderous crusade to take over the world
in the hopes that some of the spoils would stick to their hands.

In the course of the war 50-80 million died. Their people consistently showed
a lack of humanity and even basic decency. War crimes were common. They ate
our gis.

In Unit 731 their biological warfare research unit they performed experiments
as horrifying as Mengle on innocent chinese civilians and prisoners of war.

[https://unit731.org/](https://unit731.org/)

These people were infected with biological agents and many were dissected
screaming while they were alive.

The Japanese must ultimately be accountable for their leaders actions as we
are. It would be morally wrong to kill unnecessarily but if blood had to be
shed to stop the spread of evil I think it was just that it was the blood of
the guilty.

I find it interesting that nationalists from your nation have convinced you
Japan was winning they weren't they were being driven back and the war was
coming to their shores.

They were by dint of inferior production capabilities and resources doomed to
lose the war by the time the bombs were dropped although it is certain they
would have fought furiously civilian and military alike.

The big question in fact is was dropping the bomb necessary or would it have
been feasible to secure japans surrender without spending more blood from both
sides than would be lost in the bombing.

~~~
h1d
Is this place history class or CPU article comment?

~~~
aldoushuxley001
Both! And much more, that's the beauty of comment sections.

------
noetic_techy
Summary: AMD has found a legal loophole to sell out critical x86 chip design
IP to the Chinese for a cash infusion of 300+ million. Expect to see knock off
copies emerge and AMD ultimately get pushed out of China in favor a local
company that has their IP in hand. Their executives are either stupidly naive
and in for a major shock, or plain greedy/desperate and willing to sell out
the West for 300 million cash. If so then its IP laundering in my opinion. I
hope the US gov regulators roast them for this. I plan to avoid their products
as much as possible now.

------
berbec
How long till EYPK chips show up on AliExpress?

------
walrus01
What motherboards are available for these? Anyone have URLs for manufacturer
datasheets, etc?

Or are they pin and chipset compatible with existing ryzen boards?

------
DannyB2
I wonder if China's chips have something like Intel Management Engine?

------
krob
This will definitely be part of the us Trade War going on.

------
jlebrech
i wonder if they'll make multi socket motherboards. as manufacturers struggle
to go smaller they could spread the thermal load over multiple chips.

