AMD Halts Further x86 Technology Licensing to China

[Fluffmeister]

They couldn't until recently. Building a CPU for a given instruction set is easy but making it perform well is a massive amount of R&D work.

However Tom's Hardware says that AMD gave the Chinese the design on the register transfer level. Basically AMD just gave them the full design and now there is little preventing the Chinese from making their own Zen chips.

Yeah pretty sure the damage is already done at this stage, the call from the Donald to Lisa Su was too late.

 

[OSdevr]

You cannot produce hardware without silicon plants. Advanced designs need inhouse production to meet specifications. AMD may have given the keys, but without the drive, what use then?

The R&D is largely done. That's the hard part. Layout is the last step before you make a chip and much of it can be done automatically (though not optimally) with today's software.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Many have fallen by the wayside trying to improve their X86(they designed and knew) performance enough to be relevant, Cyrix, Via, IBM, a great many.

yet only two have stayed competitive and that's as arguable as it is vaguely true.

 

[mtcn77]

The R&D is largely done. That's the hard part. Layout is the last step before you make a chip and much of it can be done automatically (though not optimally) with today's software.

That's the thing. Sense M.I controls the software on the chip(microcode). You can have the design, but the vias are AMD accessible. Otherwise, if they do what you say it is,'it is the one chip to rule them all'. AMD literally cannot give China the PSP monitor to all its recipients.

Yeah pretty sure the damage is already done at this stage, the call from the Donald to Lisa Su was too late.

You guys were profiteering. AMD said it in 2014 they will be making '20x25' their personal agenda. Then, comes China saying '2025' like it is.

 

[illli]

293 million seems like a pathetically small amount to let a chinese company steal all the cpu technology AMD developed... oh i'm sorry let a chinese company 'license' AMD technology.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

293 million seems like a pathetically small amount to let a chinese company steal all the cpu technology AMD developed... oh i'm sorry let a chinese company 'license' AMD technology.

Plus royalties, it's not a one off payment.
And Thatic is a fair percentage owned by Amd.

But I do agree ,I thought it then and definitely now.

 

[Fluffmeister]

293 million seems like a pathetically small amount to let a chinese company steal all the cpu technology AMD developed... oh i'm sorry let a chinese company 'license' AMD technology.

Yeah, it's probably less than Intel's petty cash budget.

 

[sepheronx]

Russia promised "pentium killer" in 90s, got this more than a decade later.

With a series of other microprocessors along with it that were much more important like Elbrus 2SM which is dual core with 4 dsp cores ideal for radar technology, or Elbrus 8SM with DDR4 and ideal for workstations. Since it's a VLIW processor and it's OS is built around the architecture (Elbrus OS). It's a rather important step in the right direction by MCST. And with all this happening, cooperation between the two would yield good results for them. At least it won't make them dependent.

Then they also have their RISC line as well by MCST, Baikal with their MIPS processor.

 

[Deleted member 158293]

Collect royalties ...or block trade and have the model copied & made for free since there's nothing more to lose anyways....hmm...

 

[ValenOne]

AMD's US government design wins
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.

---

AMD's EU design wins
AMD and HP Enterprise for Hawk supercomputer. Valued to be around $38 million. AMD CPU.

 

[Divide Overflow]

As if a lack of licensing ever stopped China before.

 

[mtcn77]

I don't know guys. As soon as someone mentions this turf war, I recall G&S shoes and why anyone would have any objection to a US&China partnership.
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.

 

[AlwaysHope]

Didn't the CCP launch satellites last year with quantum computer tech on board? or was that 'fake' news... we will never know I suppose.
But if that IS the case, x86 tech is so old school... too late for the west!

 

[umageddon]

Dont tell me you actually think China is legit communism.....

How old are you?

 

[R-T-B]

Russia promised "pentium killer" in 90s, got this more than a decade later.

Considering Loongson based systems went from 800MHz "Lunchbox" systems to octocore mips64 systems and systems on the TOP500's top 10 in less than 5 years, I think you can discount it being a repeat of Russias ill-concieved aspirations.

Too bad the general education system has been doing its best in eliminating critical thinking capability from the younger generation.

You all must have went to a different school than me.

I don't know guys. As soon as someone mentions this turf war, I recall G&S shoes and why anyone would have any objection to a US&China partnership.
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.

OMG I swear, it's a topic on x86 licensing. Not a trade war. Not education standards.. Not shoes. At least pretend to try people.

 

[sepheronx]

Many of you like to really judge before even investigating. Russia Ill conceived efforts?

Ростех - Медиа - Новости - Ростех разработал первый суперкомпьютер на базе процессоров «Эльбрус»

rostec.ru

I think the Chinese will be fine as well in their efforts.

 

[SniperHF]

As if a lack of licensing ever stopped China before.

This seems to me to be the key here. Sure it might cause Chinese companies issues selling products in certain places if they did it unlicensed but it's a drop in the bucket.

More symbolic than anything.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Too bad the general education system has been doing its best in eliminating critical thinking capability from the younger generation. ... Guess it is always easier to rule sheeples

This is not just happening in USA only, but on other countries as well, like Japan (by far the most advanced in stopping and dismissing any form of individualism and free independent thinking of their younger generation) or some "advanced" countries in Europe.

 

[btarunr]

You know how dumb this sounds like? Picture this:

"KFC stops sharing its fried chicken recipe with Chinese franchisees."

"Chinese franchisees suddenly don't know how to make KFC anymore."

 

[FordGT90Concept]

There's some merit to that though. Ingredients are usually mixed at a facility and shipped out in bulk. All each KFC franchise knows what to do is apply, cook, and serve it. So KFC isn't sharing the "recipe," they're selling the mixture to make it.

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.

 

[R-T-B]

Many of you like to really judge before even investigating.

I get my news on an architectures success from the usual sources. I've seen nothing to suggest signifigant progress from Russia. I can't read your article but have a feeling if it was signifigant, it would have leaked to the western press by now.

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.

 

[GoldenX]

The end result of this stupid trade war will be more expensive things for everybody. No one who isn't a CEO wins from this.

 

[R-T-B]

The end result of this stupid trade war will be more expensive things for everybody. No one who isn't a CEO wins from this.

The topic of this thread really isn't the trade war at all...

 

[Mephis]

AMD's US government design wins
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.

---

AMD's EU design wins
AMD and HP Enterprise for Hawk supercomputer. Valued to be around $38 million. AMD CPU.

OK. What does that have to do with the current topic?

These recent trade/tech war news and reactions has been very fun especially in social media.

Just a while ago: Trump is bad Trump is trash, open boarders, tolerance and etc.

Then comes trade war: OMGosh China is bad! Yeah ban them! USA USA USA!

This is especially funny for some of my uber liberal friends that absolutely hates anything Trump.

However when you focus on the dynamics, a lot of the underlying influence is from Mainstream Media. It has been and will always be like this. Too bad the general education system has been doing its best in eliminating critical thinking capability from the younger generation. Instead of logics and independent thinking, we are promoting feelings. Guess it is always easier to rule sheeples

I must have not understood your post correctly. Are you trying to insinuate that liberals are failing to use critical thinking and "logics"? And that conservatives, led by Trump, excel in this area?

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?

 

[sepheronx]

I get my news on an architectures success from the usual sources. I've seen nothing to suggest signifigant progress from Russia. I can't read your article but have a feeling if it was signifigant, it would have leaked to the western press by now.

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.

The article is about the first cluster Rostec made using the Elbrus 8S processor. There are huge orders by government and various institutions that are already replacing their systems with the Elbrus 4S workstations and 8S is relatively new but is soon replaced by 8SM which is with DDR4 memory controller.

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.

“INEUM them. I. S. brook”, part of the Concern “Automatics” of state Corporation rostec, together with the group of companies RSK developed the first supercomputer on the Russian 8-core microprocessors “Elbrus-8S”. It is designed for high performance computing, big data and solving problems that require the maximum level of information security. This was announced in the framework of the IV conference “Digital industry industrial Russia”.

Supercomputing solution consists of stands containing a compact four-processor blade servers with liquid cooling. This method of heat dissipation allowed to reduce the dimensions of the module that provides the ability to post to 153 compute nodes in the same server rack. Their total computing capacity is up to 75 teraflops double – precision one rack can carry up to 75 trillion floating-point operations per second. In this case total power of a supercomputer is not particularly limited, as stands can be combined into a single computing cluster.

Each core is eight-core microprocessor “Elbrus-8S” domestic architecture “Elbrus” was able to perform up to 25 operations in a single cycle. Processor architecture can significantly increase the performance of application programs due to their optimization.

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")