cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/24503345

A team from China’s top government research academy pledged to produce this year a processor based on the open-source chip-design architecture RISC-V, as Beijing advances its semiconductor self-reliance drive amid escalating US restrictions.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) will be able to deliver its XiangShan open-source central processing unit in 2025, wrote Bao Yungang, deputy director at the academy’s Institute of Computing Technology, in a Weibo post on Sunday.

  • warmaster@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    It’s all bulshit until we see reputable benchmarks. But I hope it happens. I’m balls deep into FOSS to not drool about the idea.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆
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      2 days ago

      China has an incredibly strong incentive to pursue this, and there’s massive state level funding behind such projects. I think there’s every reason to expect that they will succeed here.

  • toothbrush@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 days ago

    Sounds very interesting. Im not sure how open it will actually be, if they just mean its using RISC-V’s open design and its just lost in translation or if they are actually trying to make an open hardware ecosystem.

    edit: I read a bit more, it seems to be a apache-like licensed software only processor that one needs to implement first, so basically something inbetween pre RISC-V and an actual chip. Still cool, but I was hoping it was a finished chip.

    • UFO@programming.dev
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      2 days ago

      The processor definition is in Scala using Chisel. This produces an HDL (what’s needed for actual hardware) using a typed embedded domain specific language. This also compiles to a software model for validation. But that’s not the same as “software only”