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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.

by gaius 8y ago

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#Dawning_6000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawning_Information_Industry#D... They could literally have ignored x86, but they are making the same strategic blunder the UK made in the 1980s

userbinator 8y ago
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 8y ago
  See the second link - they are using MIPS for HPC so it’s performance must be adequate
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    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 8y ago
      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.
scruffyherder 8y ago
I've been trying to find one on and off for a year. I wonder if they ever made more than a production sample. It looks more like some kind of threat / showing off than a product that you can buy. Email and phone calls go unanswered regarding buying one of these.

by gaius 8y ago

userbinator 8y ago

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 8y ago
See the second link - they are using MIPS for HPC so it’s performance must be adequate
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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.

scruffyherder 8y ago

I've been trying to find one on and off for a year. I wonder if they ever made more than a production sample. It looks more like some kind of threat / showing off than a product that you can buy. Email and phone calls go unanswered regarding buying one of these.