Tuesday, June 4th 2019
AMD Halts Further x86 Technology Licensing to China
AMD Lisa Su at Computex 2019 confirmed to Tom's hardware that the company wasn't licensing anymore of its x86 IP portfolio to China-based companies. AMD entered a technology license agreement with China's Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co. Ltd. (THATIC) in 2016. As part of the agreement to license its x86 and SoC IP for chip development, AMD received a cash infusion worth $293 million (plus royalties).
As a result, Chinese chipmaker Hygon started delivering their "Dhyana" CPUs, which looked like copies of AMD's Zen-based Epyc chips with added, Chinese-government approved cryptographic capabilities. AMD had to go through some hoops to get this deal done, but it did. However, now the technology refinement pipe is draining for the Chinese companies, as AMD won't be delivering its post-Zen updates to the core design. It remains to be seen if AMD's intellectual property was enough for Chinese companies to ignite their own in-country CPU development, or if the ongoing US-China trade war will keep on draining the company of CPU independence.
Source:
Tom's Hardware
As a result, Chinese chipmaker Hygon started delivering their "Dhyana" CPUs, which looked like copies of AMD's Zen-based Epyc chips with added, Chinese-government approved cryptographic capabilities. AMD had to go through some hoops to get this deal done, but it did. However, now the technology refinement pipe is draining for the Chinese companies, as AMD won't be delivering its post-Zen updates to the core design. It remains to be seen if AMD's intellectual property was enough for Chinese companies to ignite their own in-country CPU development, or if the ongoing US-China trade war will keep on draining the company of CPU independence.
76 Comments on AMD Halts Further x86 Technology Licensing to China
yet only two have stayed competitive and that's as arguable as it is vaguely true.
And Thatic is a fair percentage owned by Amd.
But I do agree ,I thought it then and definitely now.
Then they also have their RISC line as well by MCST, Baikal with their MIPS processor.
AMD and Cray with Frontier Supercomputer for DoE. Valued more than $600 million. AMD CPU and GPU.
AMD, NVIDIA and Cray with Perlmutter Supercomputer for DoE. Valued around $146 million. AMD CPU and NV GPU.
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AMD's EU design wins
AMD and HP Enterprise for Hawk supercomputer. Valued to be around $38 million. AMD CPU.
I mean, the mettle is there. Plus, the US sense of 'liberty to opportunity costs'.
I could have fancied J.M. Weston shoes, instead: apart from your overvalued romantic ideal of a subsidized economy, do you really think I would prefer your designs - your trademark notwithstanding - to an iconic triple sole?
I mean, quality doesn't have to be that expensive. Quit obfuscating your image. Retribution to exorbitant prices was what distinguished you, remember? It was energetic Calvinism against an out of commission continent.
Who told you to give up on Calvinism, dissociate from individual responsibilities and just profit? Well, it is a logical consequence that people quit when they have enough - social individuals are not equally gifted with self-conscious introspection the same way autistic geniuses have control over the temptation of easy money. You cannot corrupt the anti-social.
Maybe you should relieve yourselves of this over-indulgent self-struggle and find your own character again by uniting with your self-image? US needs to curb industrial energy prices, they did it the last time by curtailing Wolfgang Pauli - that is how you won WWII - maybe you need to reinvent the nuclear energy wheel by recruiting more talent.
But if that IS the case, x86 tech is so old school... too late for the west!
rostec.ru/news/rostekh-razrabotal-pervyy-superkompyuter-na-baze-protsessorov-elbrus/
I think the Chinese will be fine as well in their efforts.
More symbolic than anything.
"KFC stops sharing its fried chicken recipe with Chinese franchisees."
"Chinese franchisees suddenly don't know how to make KFC anymore."
AMD apparently has a 51% stake in the company that produced the ChinaZen product. That was probably a condition for licensing to happen at all. My guess is that AMD, through that 51% stake, kept the "recipe" hidden. Perhaps AMD designed the Zen chip and added the Chinese bits on it so China never got the complete design schematics, just the necessary information to manufacture it and verify the China parts are there.
The fact AMD's reach in China is minimal and no one outside of China is going want these processors because of Chinese tampering, the deal likely struck AMD as win-win so long as AMD has an exit strategy if (and it did) Chinese relations soured.
China can likely keep making these Dhyana chips (which are already obsolete by western standards) but they would have to spend a fortune on reverse engineering to make any architectural changes without AMD's help. Considering they also draw vastly more power than AMD's own products, they have process issues too.
Don't get me wrong, they have made progress and I am all for progress. Signifigant progress even given where they started. But they are way behind.
I know this isn't a political topic, but you have to be kidding. People who deny climate change, scream "fake news" at anything they don't like, coined the the term "alternative facts" and believe in the deep state conspiracy are all of a sudden masters of critical thinking and logic? And just out of curiosity, who do you think it was that gutted and is still gutting the education system? Possibly the people that insist on teaching creationism in science class?
On sites like sdelanounas.ru they already have people who thoroughly tested it and 5 years ago had videos of 4S playing doom 3 HD.
It gets Western coverage but from very small groups. You have to go to cnews Russia to get more info from it. But you can buy the system now. It's just too expensive though due to lower rate of production of the chips. I am quite frequently monitoring it's development. One guy who works on the project through INEUM I am in contact trying to obtain a sample of the board and processor (board made by Kraftway which is Russia's "Dell")
I was told even RaspberryPi could be used to build supercomputers.
You just need to stack the right amount of them.
It would also be more impressive, if that weird Chineze CPU wasn't based on tech developed by MIPS Technologies, an american company. You can't use that thing for something resembling a PC.
They tried "more tech independence" and failed miserably.
It's a piece of fail, used only where they are absolutely forced to, in military equipment (not even in military PCs)