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Two Chinese Supercomputers Break Exascale Barrier
- DeathArrow 5y agoI'm wondering how did they evade US imposed sanctions? Did they ordered the CPUs long time ago? Are the CPUs using an old process node? Something else?
- mytailorisrich 5y ago"Both systems are reportedly based on China's homegrown Phytium and Sunway processors and therefore do not use crucial technologies developed outside of Tianxia."
- DeathArrow 5y agoBut those CPUs still need to be manufactured somewhere. And it isn't efficient do build up a super computer using CPUs fabbed on an old process node.
- mytailorisrich 5y agoRight but I believe that the sanctions on Phytium came after they got hose new chips, and probably as a response to them. If those chips are in production in a new supercomputer now it means that they took delivery of them last year or early this year at the latest, IMHO.
- jhvkjhk 5y agoThis sentence is so confusing because "Tianxia" means "the Earth" in Chinese. Surely those systems don't use outer space technology!
- eunos 5y agoYou sure about that? wink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-meter_Aperture_Spherical_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-meter_Aperture_Sp... exists for a reason you know wink
- throwaway4good 5y agoI believe they use Phytium chips. Phytium is a Chinese chip designer which specialize in HPC using ARM cores.
- throwaway4good 5y agoThey were added to the ever growing sanction list this year: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/Taiwan-chip-maker-halts-business-with-US-blacklisted-Phytium https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/Taiwan-...
- throwaway4good 5y agoMy guess it is too late to prevent Chinese progress in any meaningful way. As of now they can probably fab in chips in adequate resolution using Chinese fabs.
- DeathArrow 5y agoThey are limited to 28nm process nodes - of which I think they don't have a very large capacity and they hope to be able to use 14nm the next year. They are also trying to somehow implement EUV but they have missing pieces.
- throwaway4good 5y agoI don't believe any of the Phytium processors are fabbed with EUV.
- throwaway4good 5y agoSMIC surely has the capacity and does higher resolution than 28nm. Are you referring to "pure Chinese" fabs with all Chinese equipment?
- mytailorisrich 5y agoThis was in April so it's most likely that they had already delivered the chips for this, and in fact those new sanctions are most likely a response to US intelligence on their progress.