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For Godchild, see Godparent. A godparent, in many denominations of Christianity, is someone who sponsors a child's Baptism.
Loongson's logo.
Loongson's logo.

The Loongson series[1] (龙芯, also known as the Godson or Dragon chip) is an architecture of general CPUs developed at CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences) in the People's Republic of China as an alternative to US-made Intel and AMD chips. The Chinese Academy of Sciences ( CAS) ( formerly known as Academia Sinica (not to be confused with the Republic of China 's (Taiwan Academia Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The chief architect is Professor Weiwu Hu of ICT (Institute of Computing Technology).

BLX IC Design Corporation, Ltd (BLX) was founded in 2002 by Institute of Computing Technology, China Academy of Sciences and Jiangsu Zhongyi Group. Based in Beijing, BLX focuses on designing the advanced 32bit/64bit Godson general and embedded processor, developing software tools and reference platforms.

There are other devices in development like Longmeng and Sinomanic. Lemote ( Chinese: 龙梦 Pinyin: lóng mèng literally "Dragon Dream" is a low-cost computer being developed as a joint venture between the Jiangsu The Sinomanic Tianhua GX-1C is a specially tailored Subnotebook for primary and secondary school students in mainland China

The primary purpose of the chip is to run localized Chinese versions of Linux, with emphasis on Chinese character support. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Since the Chinese language uses a logographic script — that is a script where one or more " characters " corresponds roughly to one "word" or

Contents

Name

Initially named 狗剩 (pinyin: Gou Sheng), which literally meant “Dog Leftover” in Chinese, following old Chinese traditions of naming a newborn baby with a humble name for easier upbringing and better health. And "Godson" was the English name as it is pronounced similarly to "Gou Sheng". Later “Loongson” was proposed as the official name which means the "Dragon Core" Chip, with "Godson" still being used as an internal codename for developers. The Chinese Dragon or Oriental dragon is a mythical creature in East Asian culture with a Chinese origin

Architecture Revisions

Loongson 1

The first revision of the Loongson architecture, the Loongson1 is a pure 32-bit CPU running at a clock speed of 266 MHz. The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. Its primary focus is with embedded designs such as cash registers, where 64-bit capability and high speed is not necessary. It was released in 2002.

Loongson 2

The Loongson 2 adds 64-bit capability to the Loongson architecture. Initially running at 500 MHz, later revisions to Godson 2E were produced that run up to 1 GHz, while the latest Godson 2F being produced at 1. The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. 2 GHz and released to market in early 2008. The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common

On December 26, 2007, China revealed its first supercomputer of 1 teraflops (the actual capacity is about 350G) in Hefei, designated as KD-50-I. Events 1481 - Battle of Westbrook - Holland defeats troops of Utrecht. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. A supercomputer is a Computer that is at the frontline of processing capacity particularly speed of calculation (at the time of its introduction TERA is a shielded Twisted pair connector for use with Category 7 twisted-pair data cables developed by The Siemon Company and standardized in 2003 by Measuring performance In order for FLOPS to be useful as a measure of floating-point performance a standard benchmark must be available on all computers of interest Hefei ( literally "Junction of the (South Fei Rivers " former names Ho-fei Luzhou Luchow is a Prefecture-level city and the provincial capital of This supercomputer was designed by a joint team led by academician Mr. Chen Guoliang (陈国良), professor of the computer science technology major of the University of Science and Technology of China (the primary contractor, with the Institute of Computing Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences as the secondary contractor). The University of Science and Technology of China ( USTC;) is a national research University in Hefei, China. The Chinese Academy of Sciences ( CAS) ( formerly known as Academia Sinica (not to be confused with the Republic of China 's (Taiwan Academia KD-50-I is the first Chinese built supercomputer to utilize domestic Chinese CPUs, with a total of more than 330 Loongson-2F CPUs. The size of the computer was roughly equivalent to a household refrigerator and the cost was less than RMBY 800,000. The Loongson-2F thus became the first domestic Chinese CPU to be used in a supercomputer.

Features

Loongson 2F:

Loongson 3

The Loongson 3 is planned to run at a clock speed between 1 to 1. MIPS (originally an acronym for Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages) is a RISC microprocessor architecture developed by MIPS Technologies An instruction set is a list of all the instructions and all their variations that a processor can execute A kibibyte (a contraction of ki lo bi nary byte) is a unit of Information or Computer storage, established by the International A kibibyte (a contraction of ki lo bi nary byte) is a unit of Information or Computer storage, established by the International In Computer engineering, an execution unit is a part of a CPU that performs the operations and calculations called for by the program. In Computing, SIMD ( S ingle I nstruction M ultiple D ata is a technique employed to achieve data level parallelism as in a Vector 2 GHz, with 4 cores. The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. The first version of the chip will only support DDR2 RAM, will not have SMT support or a built-in network interface. Simultaneous multithreading, often abbreviated as SMT, is a technique for improving the overall efficiency of Superscalar CPUs with Hardware

History

The instruction set is MIPS compatible, but the creators have backed away from promoting the chip as such due to threats of a lawsuit (see a Lexra history). MIPS (originally an acronym for Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages) is a RISC microprocessor architecture developed by MIPS Technologies Lexra was a Semiconductor intellectual property core company based in Waltham Massachusetts.

In March 2006 a €100 Godson II computer design called Longmeng (Dragon Dream) was announced. Stories without links will be removed. News stories must be in English Please update other articles as well to avoid contradiction within Wikipedia e Lemote ( Chinese: 龙梦 Pinyin: lóng mèng literally "Dragon Dream" is a low-cost computer being developed as a joint venture between the Jiangsu

In June 2006 at Computex'2006, Taipei YellowSheepRiver company has announced a Municator YSR-639, a mini-computer based on the 400MHz Godson 2.

In September 2006, Li Guojie, director of the Institute of Computer Technology under the CAS announced a Longxin IIE (Godson IIE) a 64-bit chip containing 47 million transistors and reaching 1GHz. It implements a subset of the MIPS III ISA. An instruction set is a list of all the instructions and all their variations that a processor can execute

Lemote's Fulong MiniPC
Lemote's Fulong MiniPC

In the second half of the third quarter of 2006, China revealed the latest addition to the Godson series, the Godson 2E, which was already in early stage of manufacturing, and mass production was scheduled at the end of the year. According to developers' paper published on the Journal of Computer Science and Technology, tests show that the Chinese chip can rival Intel Pentium 4 processor in performance and it was superior to the early series of the Pentium 4 CPUs, but the Chinese CPU could be produced at a much lower cost.

Unlike processors from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices or Via Technologies, the Godson-2E is not based on the x86 instruction set. VIA Technologies ( is a Taiwanese manufacturer of Integrated circuits mainly Motherboard Chipsets CPUs, and memory, and Instead, the chip uses a modified version of the MIPS instruction set that replaces proprietary instructions with ones developed by ICT. MIPS (originally an acronym for Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages) is a RISC microprocessor architecture developed by MIPS Technologies This means the Godson 2E cannot be used in PCs running Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, and thus the computing devices based on the Godson 2E would be most likely running the Linux operating system. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks

In January 2007 Gentoo Linux was ported on this machine, the initial port was compiled on a Cobalt Qube micro-server. The Gentoo Linux Operating system (ˈdʒɛntuː is a Linux distribution based on the Portage Package management system. The Cobalt Qube was a Computer Server appliance product line developed by Cobalt Networks, Inc

In March 2007 STMicroelectronics bought a licence from MIPS Technologies Inc. STMicroelectronics (,)is an franco-italian Electronics and Semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in in Geneva, Switzerland. MIPS Technologies Inc ( formerly MIPS Computer Systems, is most widely known for developing the MIPS architecture and a series of pioneering RISC and announced a partnership wherein STMicro will manufacture and distribute Godson-family processors.

The processor runs at clock speed of 1 GHz and like other chips in the Godson family, the Godson 2E was designed by the Chinese Academy of Science's Institute of Computing Technology (ICT) and was the first Chinese CPU produced using 90-nanometer process technology. The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. A nanometre ( American spelling: nanometer, symbol nm) ( Greek: νάνος nanos dwarf; μετρώ metrό count) is a Earlier versions of the Godson 2 chip were produced using a 180-nanometer process and ran at clock speeds up to 500MHz. A nanometre ( American spelling: nanometer, symbol nm) ( Greek: νάνος nanos dwarf; μετρώ metrό count) is a Godson 2E CPU contains 47 million transistors, more than the 42 million of the original Pentium 4. But this processing power will not be a drain on laptop batteries, as power consumption is between 3 to 8 watts, according to CAE Fellow Li Guojie (李国杰), director of the institute. The Chinese Academy of Engineering ( Chinese: 中国工程院 Pinyin: Zhōngguó Gōngchéng Yuàn is the National academy of the People's Republic Li Guojie also announced that at the end of 2006, scientists would start to upgrade Godson 2E to Godson 2F, which will improve performance by about 30% and power consumption reduced by about 50%. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. By 2008, Godson-3 is scheduled to enter production.

On November 13, 2006, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), Li Guojie announced to the public that "Godson 2E is ready for mass production. Events 1002 - English king Ethelred orders the killing of all Danes in England, known today as the St Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. The Chinese Academy of Sciences ( CAS) ( formerly known as Academia Sinica (not to be confused with the Republic of China 's (Taiwan Academia Li Guojie told the public that from Godson 1 to Godson 2B, the capability of the chip has tripled, and from Godson 2B to Godson 2C, from Godson 2C to Godson 2E, the capability has continuously tripled. On the average, the capability of Godson series chip doubles every year, four times of what Moore's law claims, and China should accumulate small successes into large success. Moore's law describes an important trend in the History of computer hardware. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National " Currently, the Loongson box that comes with a 600Mhz Godson 2E processor is sold in China at CNY1599 (~US$200) without monitor, mouse, and keyboard.

Operating Systems

These computers primarily run the Linux operating system, however users have managed to port other operating systems such as Windows CE[2] to the Loongson architecture. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Windows CE (also known officially as Windows Embedded Compact post version 6

Linux distributions that work on Loongson:


Controversies

With foreign CPUs like Intel, AMD and to a lesser extent, Apple, splitting up the Chinese PC market since the 90's, the Chinese finally decided to build their own CPU, for commercial and 'strategic' reasons. Red Flag Linux ( 红旗 Linux) is a Chinese Linux distribution. Mandriva SA is a publicly traded (symbolMDKFF Linux and Open source Software company with its headquarters in Paris, France and During the first years of the 21st century saw the emergence of several civilian CPU designing teams, most of them financially supported by the Chinese government. Among them are 'Han Xin'(literally 'Chinese core') and 'Long Xin'(literally 'Dragon core') being the more famous ones. The former was led by CHEN Jin, with a lab based in Shanghai Jiaotong University, the latter was led by HU Wei-wu, based in CAS.

CHEN, who was an ex-employee of Motorola, had claimed in 2002 that his team developed an indigenous CPU, and as a result recieved government fundings accumulating up to 100 mil yuan (more than USD 14 mil) for futher development. In 2005, however, Chen's co-worker told media that the project was in fact a scam. This brought the Chinese authorities investigating into the alleged fraud, and revealed that the 10 'CPU' which Chen displayed during the 2002 press conference, were but remarked DSP chips originally manufactured by Motorola (Moto Freescale 56800 DSP), without the prior knowledge of Motorola, of course. Chen later admit that his team removed the Motorola logo and specs with sandpaper and printed their own logo over the chips. The funds for initial production of the chips were actually wired to a 'shell' company Chen set up in USA. Chen was subsequently removed from his post in the university, stripped of all honors and titles given to him, and had been ordered to return the funds allocated to him. whether the Chinese authorities press charges against him was not known.

Punishment Annoucement of CHEN jin, by Shanghai Jiaotong University (in Chinese)

News release on Han Xin CPU fraud (in Chinese)

This incident has great impact on the CPU designing industry in China, as people began to focus their attention on other designing teams, with much suspicion and distrust. Long Xin, or Loongson, is no exception to this. So far there are no open allegations or investigations hinting that Loongson is a similiar scam. But looking at news releases in the past, it is no surprise that there are growing public opinion against HU wei-wu and his designing team.

Timeline of events and results:

So far, no actual commercialised product of Loongson CPU was seen. There are numerous press releases and annoucements, but not a single user review to date. The true caliber and ability of the Loongson CPU family, remains unclear to the general Chinese population.



References

  1. ^ 龙芯处理器英文品牌定名Loongson(组图)_业界_科技时代_新浪网
  2. ^ 福珑电脑WinCE 5.0 图片 - 北京龙芯技术服务中心 - 龙芯论坛 - 龙芯官方论坛 - Powered by Discuz!

See also

External links

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