
Alibaba partner announces 16 core RISC-V chip - rwmj
https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-07-25/alibaba-chip-subsidiary-launches-first-product-using-open-source-architecture-101443785.html
======
tgtweak
Article explaining the relevance of this news:
[https://technode.com/2019/07/24/chinas-chipmakers-risc-v-
san...](https://technode.com/2019/07/24/chinas-chipmakers-risc-v-sanctions/)

~~~
estomagordo
Link seems terribly dead =/

~~~
class4behavior
Just load it via an archive?

[https://web.archive.org/web/20190724090600/https://technode....](https://web.archive.org/web/20190724090600/https://technode.com/2019/07/24/chinas-
chipmakers-risc-v-sanctions/)

[https://archive.is/I5bgm](https://archive.is/I5bgm)

------
TallGuyShort
Reminds me of Adapteva's Parallela, which I bought and was really excited
about, but was obviously a commercial failure. I work on software that has an
above-average (but far less than HPC) need for concurrency, but even our most
demanding customers seem to be content with off-the-shelf Intel, either
because they don't need THAT many cores, or because they value the more
sophisticated instructions (like encryption acceleration, etc.) I'm curious to
know what kind of use cases y'all work on that might crave something like
this.

~~~
BubRoss
Modern x64 is very difficult to beat and takes a lot more than just raw core
count. The out of order execution, prefetching, multiple execution units,
SIMD, cache, cache synchronization etc. are all very strong. I think the space
where more weak cores can be utilized but not GPUs is pretty slim. Intel
themselves even had that briefly with their high core count out of order atom
core chips that didn't take off (or weren't given a chance).

I think software that can take advantage of more than a few cores without just
using brute force fork-join parallelism in some of the heavy loops is rare. I
don't think it has to be that way, but the problem comes down to software
architecture which isn't going to be solved by leaving each application
programmer to their own devices. It will take libraries that give them the
means to do it without having to reason about low level synchronization.

~~~
marktangotango
_Modern x64 is very difficult to beat and takes a lot more than just raw core
count._

Are there any alternatives on the horizon?

~~~
monocasa
AArch64, and RISC-V. POWER is a monoculture, and MIPS never really got out of
it's gate count niche.

~~~
farisjarrah
MIPS may enjoy a resurgence, it will be open sourced soon I have read.

~~~
monocasa
It wasn't really open sourced. It's open in the sense that if you pay a bunch
of money, and sign an NDA, you'll be given access to the source... which has
always been the case. Some sales bro bought MIPS and slapped an "open" label
on it. IMO, it's current steward has done more to kill it then ARM and RISC-V
ever could.

------
rwmj
There are several links available for this announcement, but none of them are
that great. Alternatives: [https://kr-asia.com/alibabas-pingtouge-launches-
own-processo...](https://kr-asia.com/alibabas-pingtouge-launches-own-
processor-aiming-to-be-a-chip-infrastructure-provider-for-ai-and-iot)
[https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-07-25/alibaba-chip-
subsidi...](https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-07-25/alibaba-chip-subsidiary-
launches-first-product-using-open-source-architecture-101443785.html)

~~~
yorwba
Alibaba doesn't seem to have any press releases written about this, not even
in Chinese. All reporting seems to be based on what CTO Zhang Jianfeng said at
the currently ongoing Alibaba Cloud Summit (
[https://summit.aliyun.com/](https://summit.aliyun.com/) ). Maybe they'll have
more information on the specifics once the summit is over.

------
londons_explore
How long before Android runs properly on RISC-V?

And will they be able to persuade app-makers to rebuild all apps for the
platform - x86 Android shows how hard that can be.

~~~
microcolonel
> _How long before Android runs properly on RISC-V?_

It's mostly up to OpenJDK and V8 porting. When it comes to porting V8, I've
found out the hard way that there's more to it than a generic understanding of
compilers. Somebody still has to step up to the plate for a real JVM.

> _And will they be able to persuade app-makers to rebuild all apps for the
> platform - x86 Android shows how hard that can be._

Real x86 Android devices had libhoudini (DBT), which was pretty decent. If
RISC-V starts with low-end devices, or with a high-visibility model that
developers are pretty sure will sell well, then the native compilation target
will become more popular over time.

If China's bizarre local app market is involved, chances are they'll start
supporting the target as soon as it's available.

~~~
defer
A small correction, Android does not use OpenJDK. It uses the ART runtime
([https://source.android.com/devices/tech/dalvik](https://source.android.com/devices/tech/dalvik))
which will definitly need porting.

Slightly longer answer is that _some parts_ of the OpenJDK are used. Namely,
LUNI (implementation of java.lang, java.util, java.net, java.io) run on the
device, but those are high-level enough that they will require either none or
minimal changes for risc-v.

Compiling applications also uses OpenJDK (or the Jack compiler in platform
builds) but that is an intermediate step on the host. The produced JVM
bytecode gets converted to Dex bytecode during the build process.

I think the effort for Android will be two-fold:

On the software side, Bionic (android's libc), Dalvik (runtime), LLVM,
external dependencies (i.e. boringssl, lib{vpx,hecv,mpeg4,etc},) definitely
need work.

On the hardware side it all lies on the practical availability of a SoC. While
I have no doubt we'll have something similar to android-x86 running on
discrete chips, commercial devices will need a more complete cpu+gpu+dsp+modem
package.

~~~
microcolonel
> _A small correction, Android does not use OpenJDK. It uses the ART runtime_

Oops! I got confused after there was uncertainty in 2015 because of the Oracle
lawsuits. I believe it was reported at that time that they would switch to
OpenJDK, or something similar enough was reported that that's what I
remembered.

> _On the software side, Bionic (android 's libc), Dalvik (runtime), LLVM,
> external dependencies (i.e. boringssl, lib{vpx,hecv,mpeg4,etc},) definitely
> need work._

Not all of those need to be in software, but yes, it all needs to come
together.

> _commercial devices will need a more complete cpu+gpu+dsp+modem package._

Totally, though the non-CPU bits have little to do with RISC-V either way, and
the drivers for them tend to be (relatively) portable C code, so that bodes
well.

------
baybal2
Being in Arm's position sucks now.

Would they not be so enthusiastic about sanctions, Chinese would've been way
more cautious jumping on RISC-V boat.

Now instead of having RISC-V as one off research projects, which would have
probably died off silently, now they are all treated as survival essential
projects.

~~~
mark_l_watson
I agree. I feel like we (USA) are forcing China on a path that will make them
more competitive long term.

~~~
sangnoir
The same thing happened when China wanted to join the ISS[1] - the US Congress
blocked this to avoid "tech transfer". Instead of being dejected and sad,
China kickstarted its space station program, and are now collaborating with
Europe.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_International_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_International_Space_Station#China)

------
bhouston
When will RISC-V move to multi-chip modules
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-
chip_module](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-chip_module)) as AMD has done
very successfully with Ryzen?

It allows for easy scaling of CPU designs as well as increasing yield by
making smaller components that have overall lower defect rates.

hat seems like the logical next move for most CPU chip vendors/designers
except for maybe ARM.

~~~
rwmj
"RISC-V" isn't an organization that can "move to multi-chip modules". RISC-V
is a foundation which essentially publishes a couple of PDF files (the user
spec and priv spec) and organizes a bunch of other stuff around reference
hardware designs, simulators and the software toolchain.

All of this is BSD licensed, so anyone can pick it up and manufacture chips
based on the specification or by modifying one of the reference designs. Note
that the largest part of designing and building a chip is not the choice of
ISA (that's probably well under 10% of it).

What you may want to know is whether any manufacturers are going to make
modular RISC-V chips. None of them to my knowledge. But most of them are
currently focusing on the ARM space (embedded, IoT, AI, etc.) including this
particular design.

~~~
digikata
The nice thing is that software and work on a RISC-V toolchain can now be much
more common for vendors that elect to use RISC-V, though it remains to be seen
how well the actual manufactured chip variation gets supported like
instruction set extensions, peripherals, and configurations for many cores.
ARM had some motivation to help ease the customization pain for tooling for
their IP licensees, so I'm curious if RISC-V support will be more like ARM or
more like early UNIX vendors.

------
1121redblackgo
The 'muddying the waters, what about the US' comments on these threads always
intrigue me.

------
bogwog
This is both awesome and terrifying. I'll never forget this
research([https://www.wired.com/2016/06/demonically-clever-backdoor-
hi...](https://www.wired.com/2016/06/demonically-clever-backdoor-hides-inside-
computer-chip/)) which showed how an attacker can insert a backdoor into a
chip during the manufacturing process in a way that is practically impossible
to catch. That makes me very concerned about using a chip completely
manufactured in China.

But at the same time, RISC-V needs to happen. It's a critical step to move
computing forward. It's just a damn shame that this is the way it's going to
happen. Hopefully this will push RISC-V manufacturing efforts in the US before
the market becomes flooded with cheap open source and most likely backdoored
chips manufactured in China.

~~~
strooper
Is there a way to know that the present chips are not backdoored? Or,
backdoored by US? Why should the world be concern about Chinese backdoors and
not US ones?

~~~
eloff
Let's not pretend the US and China are equally authoritarian please.

~~~
coldtea
Let's not pretend how they are governed internally is what concerns the rest
of the world.

The US has been in constant wars, invasions, meddling with foreign politics,
running protectorates, etc. for over a century, including having bases all
around the world. Far more countries have battle and regime change scars by
the US than by China. Including it being the only country that ever dropped
atomic bombs (and to civilians, none the less).

And it's not just the Orange Baboon in charge that's worrying (though of
course there's that too) -- the "Nobel Peace Price" winner Obama had a worse
track record.

(Of course for Americans anything that happened over 20 or 40 years ago is
ancient history and the world should have forgotten it and totally trust them
now -- still there were like 4 wars and one regime change they assisted in the
last 20 years, so there's that).

~~~
debaserab2
Yeah, and China does equally disgusting things _to its own citizens_.
Literally right now they are enacting cultural genocide on millions of their
own people (see: the uyghurs)

Do you really have faith that China is going to act any differently to
outsiders?

~~~
behringer
Americans imprison more people than China. Americans imprison and torture
children at the border.

~~~
fromthestart
>Americans imprison more people than China.

But we have due process and most of these offenses are due to the failed drug
war. Whether or not people should be locked up for drug offenses is one thing,
but the laws being broken are pretty clear and generally aren't being used as
punishment for expressing anti-government sentiment.

>Americans imprison and torture children at the border

This angle is pretty ridiculous. The border facilities are totally overwhelmed
by an influx of people who by law are not allowed entry to the U.S. The vast
majority are economic migrants, not assylum seekers. Moreover, they made the
choice to come here knowing full well the illegality of their actions, and
they are not being "imprisoned," they are being detained for a few weeks while
the overloaded system processes their claims. Calling it torture is an
exaggeration. Also the miserable conditions at the contentious facilities
recently in the news are not representative of ICE facilities in general.

~~~
coldtea
> _But we have due process_

Only when people are not just executed by cops because they dared look too
black or homeless or whatever (so many more cases of police killings that any
European country when adjusted for population that it's amazing).

And even then, the due process is full of batshit-crazy aspects, from
prosecutorial blackmail deals, to "three-strikes" BS.

And let's not even get into prison conditions, use of solitary confinement,
rape as "joke", private prisons and prison labor, and so on...

Or the fact that it's the only (or close) western country to still have the
death penalty...

And that's for official prisons. Now let's add the various "sites"...

~~~
fromthestart
>Only when people are not just executed by cops because they dared look too
black or homeless or whatever

These atrocities are an exceedingly tiny minority out of millions of yearly
police interactions.

>And even then, the due process is full of batshit-crazy aspects, from
prosecutorial blackmail deals, to "three-strikes" BS

The system is not perfect, but the point is that in contrast to authoritarian
China, it is generally not abused to suppress political dissent and U.S.
citizens have rights to due process and representation in the legal system
that do not exist in China.

------
zoobab
I mirrored the PR of RISC-V foundation here:

[http://www.zoobab.com/alibaba-unveils-most-powerful-risc-
v-p...](http://www.zoobab.com/alibaba-unveils-most-powerful-risc-v-processor-
to-date)

------
microcolonel
Too bad they only quoted the CoreMark, and only compared it to an in-order
processor.

I'd love to see a real benchmark, and a comparison to a processor in the same
ballpark in terms of power and area.

------
nickik
I would really liked to know what extentions they will support. Will the
support the Vector extention? How about some of the once that are not quite
finished yet, like Bit manipulations.

~~~
snvzz
>I would really liked to know what extentions they will support.

Me too.

>Will the support the Vector extention?

The vector (V) extension is not standarized yet. It'll likely take two years,
as per updates in recent conferences.

>How about some of the once that are not quite finished yet, like Bit
manipulations.

That one (X) isn't ready either, but more likely to be ready soon.

~~~
Symmetry
Just because standardization isn't finished doesn't mean they won't go ahead
an build the closest thing to the current consensus they can manage.

~~~
tpetry
Or build something they prefer. If someone is too slow in standardizing there
often many concurring „standards“ because people needed a solution.

------
chvid
How does this compare to the Intel X86 CPUs in terms of power consumption,
price and performance?

Is this CPU a viable alternative for server and desktop computing?

~~~
rwmj
This chip exists entirely as a file on a computer, and maybe a few FPGAs, so I
doubt even the company announcing this has very much idea. It seems as if
they're hoping to get SMIC to manufacture this, so it won't exactly be a
competitive node (although China is pouring vast amounts of resources into
making their semiconductor manufacturing competitive, so give it a few years).

~~~
chvid
So far is this thing actually from being produced? (In time and cost)

~~~
rwmj
Although it sounds radical (16 cores!) it's a rather low end chip. So months
to a year, and millions to low 10s of millions of dollars. However the Chinese
govt is massively investing in semiconductors at the moment so they will
regard that as valuable research and investment rather than a cost.

------
joelthelion
What's the significance of this announcement? What are the likely markets for
this chip?

~~~
IceWreck
For one, RISC-V is fully open hardware unlike x86, amd64, arm and other
architectures. More adoption is always a good thing.

~~~
majewsky
RISC-V is an open ISA, but a particular RISC-V chip is not necessarily open
hardware. In fact, most probably aren't.

~~~
tpetry
What i don‘t get is how optimizations should work for Risc-V. For e.g. intel
chips you can do optimizations for every generation because some things have
been optimized in the architecture so you can do different tricks. But with
risc-v only the instruction set is the same and every cpu could implement it
differently with different performance characteristics. How should someone
optimize for this?

~~~
floatboth
It's been already happening with ARM. Clang has tune flags for
cortex-$generation, thunderx, thunderx2 (vulcan), (not upstream yet) emag…

and regular distributions ship generic just like on amd64 :)

~~~
tpetry
Yeah because ARM sells the complete implementation for the ARM core. But with
Risc-V there may be hundreds of different implementations, you can‘t really
add optimizations for everyone.

~~~
floatboth
Not everyone buys the implementations, I specifically listed multiple non-
Cortex ones. Cavium/Marvell ThunderX, ThunderX2 (Broadcom Vulcan), Qualcomm
Centriq (press F for Falkor), Ampere eMAG (Skylark), all current Apple stuff,
are all very different custom implementations.

TX2 in particular has a fascinating history:
[https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/cavium/microarchitectures/vulca...](https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/cavium/microarchitectures/vulcan)

------
ev0lv
For all my .NET developers, if you want your .NET Core app to target RISC-V
ISA, you would need to use Mono AOT and to specify the LLVM target is RISC-V.

------
mbrumlow
Indeed. RISC architecture is gonna change everything.

~~~
nguoi
RISC architectures have existed for about 4 decades.

~~~
mbrumlow
It's a quote from hackers the movie from 1995.

