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Love reading these highly detailed analyses. Short version: Zhaoxin's currently competitive with 2010/2011-era AMD and Intel, with some asterisks around RAM spe
by vessenes 2y ago
Love reading these highly detailed analyses. Short version: Zhaoxin's currently competitive with 2010/2011-era AMD and Intel, with some asterisks around RAM speed.
There is to my mind a sort of race to get up to "fast enough to host H100 competitor AI hardware" with non-US IP that makes sense to engage in. In those terms, it looks like they're maybe 2 revs away -- I'm not sure what process node the KX7000 is on, but there's some architectural work to finish up. That said, this is interesting. I assume the chips will continue to improve from Zhaoxin, unless they lose their core team.
- chasil 2y ago"Zhaoxin did not specify what process node they’re using. Techpowerup and Wccftech suggests it uses an unspecified 16nm node."
- vessenes 2y agoThat’s pretty easily verified by a reasonably competent chip engineer and a microscope, if its 16 and they need to stay on shore only, they could be a little closer in terms of time than I speculated. SMIC at 7nm is reportedly stable; not sure about yields though. I think if I were in charge I’d probably do a final architecture spin at 16, and then shrink that one to 7 or 5 if I could get it.
- undefuser 2y agoIf the goal is to make a CPU that is "fast enough to host H100 competitor AI hardware", then why bother with x64? Huawei could have just produced a powerful ARM chip to go with their new AI processor. After all, Nvidia GB200 also uses Arm-based CPUs (the Grace in GB).