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This is VIA Technologies. Details here: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/via-chinese-x86-soc-2019,36209.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/via-chinese-x86-so

This is VIA Technologies. Details here: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/via-chinese-x86-soc-2019,36209.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/via-chinese-x86-soc-2019,36...

gaius 9y ago
but its chips don’t make it out of the country because they’re largely used in products built for the Chinese government. Very wise of them. Right now the UK needs to make a serious push to make ARM our primary choice, and fabbed here too. This is as strategic as nukes.
- dogma1138 9y ago
  It's too late for that ARM is no longer a UK company.
  - madez 9y ago
    The argument of national security goes a long way.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      It certainly goes a long way towards redirecting money to favoured state companies and building protectionist barriers, yes. Whether it provides any actual security is another matter.
      - klodolph 9y ago
        Are you aware of historical events like the 1982 Siberian pipeline explosion? It was allegedly caused by sabotaged software inserted by a Canadian company on behalf of the CIA. Modern chips are certainly dense enough and have enough layers that you can hide Trojans in them. Buying e.g. routers with Chinese ICs is a credible threat to the US government.
        kogepathic 9y ago
        > Modern chips are certainly dense enough and have enough layers that you can hide Trojans in them. Buying e.g. routers with Chinese ICs is a credible threat to the US government. Why bother hiding the malware in hardware? Most electronics are made in China these days anyway, and only a very, very small fraction of users ever replace or investigate the firmware on their devices. Much easier and cheaper just to load a compromised firmware during manufacture and snoop that way.
        klodolph 9y ago
        > …only a very, very small fraction of users ever replace or investigate the firmware on their devices… Remember that the users we are talking about here are US government agencies. Yes, they do investigate firmware. Yes, they do code reviews of your firmware source code. No, they won't let you just ship them a Chinese router with factory firmware on it.
        pjc50 9y ago
        There's a strange little collaboration between BT, GCHQ and Huawei going on at "Adastral Park" (Martlesham Heath). It's all top secret, but the person who told me about it hinted that it wasn't about removing the surveillance backdoors but making sure that GCHQ had access to them.
        oh_sigh 9y ago
        The explosion happened because Soviets stole control software and tried to run it on their system.
        klodolph 9y ago
        The software was not stolen, it was purchased from a Canadian company. The explosion happened because of the CIA's sabotage efforts.
        oh_sigh 9y ago
        This (and many other sources online) claim that the Soviets stole it from a Canadian company: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1455559/CIA-plot-led-to-huge-blast-in-Siberian-gas-pipeline.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1... Basically, the CIA learned that the Soviets were looking for this software, and got the Canadian company to plant a bug in it before the soviets could steal it.
    - lurr 9y ago
      It works as well as "think of the children".
- sanxiyn 9y ago
  You mean ARM Holdings plc, a wholly owned subsidary of SoftBank Group Corp.?
  - gaius 9y ago
    Well, quite. Didn’t the US block the sale of MIPS to a Chinese buyer?
    - keltor 9y ago
      It wouldn't really matter anyways since the Chinese have been making MIPS64 chips for more than a decade. The current high end chip in China is actually new arch based on the DEC Alpha.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- Proven 9y ago
  Statist nonsense
- talideon 9y ago
  Even before Softbank bought them, ARM weren't even a fabless operation: their whole business model is IP cores. There's very little strategic value in that; you'd be as well off founding a semiconductor manufacturer to build RISC V processors.
- jotm 9y ago
  Drumming up national security for the UK? I guess if you're planning to go to war with the EU... Otherwise it's as useless as Trident.
Nokinside 9y ago
It's a joint venture with municipal government of Shanghai as the article says. Zhaoxin Semiconductor is Chinese government funded and part of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Development Program.
djsumdog 9y ago
Ah, the old VIA chips, which VIA built from the tech they bought from Cyrix. If you're interested in the history of Cyrix and some of the older x86 compatible chips, here's a great video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWGAdoMz1c0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWGAdoMz1c0 Also these Zhaonix's are just 32-bit right? I didn't seen anything on the site about supporting x86_64.
- andyana 9y ago
  No, they mention 32/64 on the specs pages.
- aidenn0 9y ago
  VIA's CPUs were from their purchase of Centaur Technology, not fro Cyrix, right? (IIRC there is a HNer that worked at Centuar for a while, perhaps they can expand).
  - rzzzt 9y ago
    The C3 does seem to be from Centaur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_C3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_C3
- pharrington 9y ago
  http://en.zhaoxin.com/ZXC.aspx?seriesid=3 http://en.zhaoxin.com/ZXC.aspx?seriesid=3
- krylon 9y ago
  My first PC had a Cyrix CPU, a P166+, running at 133MHz. PC vendors building middle- to low-end PCs liked them, because they were cheaper than Intel, and for most stuff people did with their PCs back then, it offered acceptable performance. Unless you wanted to play Quake, that is. ;-) But the integer performance of these chips was rather impressive. The other problem was that Cyrix CPUs used more power than Intel's, so they generated more heat and therefore needed a better cooling system. PC vendors often used cheap low-end fans that were well-suited for Pentiums, but caused many, many crashes due to the system overheating. Once I replaced the fan with a bigger one, the crash-rate dropped by about 90%.
rasz 9y ago
This is also fake news, aka propaganda. Do you remember that 4 core 2GHz Via cpu from 2015? or maybe that 8 core 2016 one? All paper products https://www.pcgamesn.com/sites/default/files/VIA%20CPU.jpg https://www.pcgamesn.com/sites/default/files/VIA%20CPU.jpg

This is VIA Technologies. Details here: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/via-chinese-x86-soc-2019,36209.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/via-chinese-x86-soc-2019,36...

gaius 9y ago

but its chips don’t make it out of the country because they’re largely used in products built for the Chinese government. Very wise of them. Right now the UK needs to make a serious push to make ARM our primary choice, and fabbed here too. This is as strategic as nukes.

dogma1138 9y ago
It's too late for that ARM is no longer a UK company.
- madez 9y ago
  The argument of national security goes a long way.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    It certainly goes a long way towards redirecting money to favoured state companies and building protectionist barriers, yes. Whether it provides any actual security is another matter.
    - klodolph 9y ago
      Are you aware of historical events like the 1982 Siberian pipeline explosion? It was allegedly caused by sabotaged software inserted by a Canadian company on behalf of the CIA. Modern chips are certainly dense enough and have enough layers that you can hide Trojans in them. Buying e.g. routers with Chinese ICs is a credible threat to the US government.
      - kogepathic 9y ago
        > Modern chips are certainly dense enough and have enough layers that you can hide Trojans in them. Buying e.g. routers with Chinese ICs is a credible threat to the US government. Why bother hiding the malware in hardware? Most electronics are made in China these days anyway, and only a very, very small fraction of users ever replace or investigate the firmware on their devices. Much easier and cheaper just to load a compromised firmware during manufacture and snoop that way.
        klodolph 9y ago
        > …only a very, very small fraction of users ever replace or investigate the firmware on their devices… Remember that the users we are talking about here are US government agencies. Yes, they do investigate firmware. Yes, they do code reviews of your firmware source code. No, they won't let you just ship them a Chinese router with factory firmware on it.
      - pjc50 9y ago
        There's a strange little collaboration between BT, GCHQ and Huawei going on at "Adastral Park" (Martlesham Heath). It's all top secret, but the person who told me about it hinted that it wasn't about removing the surveillance backdoors but making sure that GCHQ had access to them.
      - oh_sigh 9y ago
        The explosion happened because Soviets stole control software and tried to run it on their system.
        klodolph 9y ago
        The software was not stolen, it was purchased from a Canadian company. The explosion happened because of the CIA's sabotage efforts.
        oh_sigh 9y ago
        This (and many other sources online) claim that the Soviets stole it from a Canadian company: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1455559/CIA-plot-led-to-huge-blast-in-Siberian-gas-pipeline.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1... Basically, the CIA learned that the Soviets were looking for this software, and got the Canadian company to plant a bug in it before the soviets could steal it.
  - lurr 9y ago
    It works as well as "think of the children".
sanxiyn 9y ago
You mean ARM Holdings plc, a wholly owned subsidary of SoftBank Group Corp.?
- gaius 9y ago
  Well, quite. Didn’t the US block the sale of MIPS to a Chinese buyer?
  - keltor 9y ago
    It wouldn't really matter anyways since the Chinese have been making MIPS64 chips for more than a decade. The current high end chip in China is actually new arch based on the DEC Alpha.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Proven 9y ago
Statist nonsense
talideon 9y ago
Even before Softbank bought them, ARM weren't even a fabless operation: their whole business model is IP cores. There's very little strategic value in that; you'd be as well off founding a semiconductor manufacturer to build RISC V processors.
jotm 9y ago
Drumming up national security for the UK? I guess if you're planning to go to war with the EU... Otherwise it's as useless as Trident.

Nokinside 9y ago

It's a joint venture with municipal government of Shanghai as the article says. Zhaoxin Semiconductor is Chinese government funded and part of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Development Program.

djsumdog 9y ago

Ah, the old VIA chips, which VIA built from the tech they bought from Cyrix. If you're interested in the history of Cyrix and some of the older x86 compatible chips, here's a great video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWGAdoMz1c0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWGAdoMz1c0 Also these Zhaonix's are just 32-bit right? I didn't seen anything on the site about supporting x86_64.

andyana 9y ago
No, they mention 32/64 on the specs pages.
aidenn0 9y ago
VIA's CPUs were from their purchase of Centaur Technology, not fro Cyrix, right? (IIRC there is a HNer that worked at Centuar for a while, perhaps they can expand).
- rzzzt 9y ago
  The C3 does seem to be from Centaur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_C3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_C3
pharrington 9y ago
http://en.zhaoxin.com/ZXC.aspx?seriesid=3 http://en.zhaoxin.com/ZXC.aspx?seriesid=3
krylon 9y ago
My first PC had a Cyrix CPU, a P166+, running at 133MHz. PC vendors building middle- to low-end PCs liked them, because they were cheaper than Intel, and for most stuff people did with their PCs back then, it offered acceptable performance. Unless you wanted to play Quake, that is. ;-) But the integer performance of these chips was rather impressive. The other problem was that Cyrix CPUs used more power than Intel's, so they generated more heat and therefore needed a better cooling system. PC vendors often used cheap low-end fans that were well-suited for Pentiums, but caused many, many crashes due to the system overheating. Once I replaced the fan with a bigger one, the crash-rate dropped by about 90%.

rasz 9y ago

This is also fake news, aka propaganda. Do you remember that 4 core 2GHz Via cpu from 2015? or maybe that 8 core 2016 one? All paper products https://www.pcgamesn.com/sites/default/files/VIA%20CPU.jpg https://www.pcgamesn.com/sites/default/files/VIA%20CPU.jpg