48-Core Russian Baikal-S Processor Die Shots Appear

[AleksandarK]

In December of 2021, we covered the appearance of Russia's home-grown Baikal-S processor, which has 48 cores based on Arm Cortex-A75 cores. Today, thanks to the famous chip photographer Fritzchens Fritz, we have the first die shows that show us exactly how Baikal-S SoC is structured internally and what it is made up of. Manufactured on TSMC's 16 nm process, the Baikal-S BE-S1000 design features 48 Arm Cortex-A75 cores running at a 2.0 GHz base and a 2.5 GHz boost frequency. With a TDP of 120 Watts, the design seems efficient, and the Russian company promises performance comparable to Intel Skylake Xeons or Zen1-based AMD EPYC processors. It also uses a home-grown RISC-V core for management and controlling secure boot sequences.

Below, you can see the die shots taken by Fritzchens Fritz and annotated details by Twitter user Locuza that marked the entire SoC. Besides the core clusters, we see that a slum of cache connects everything, with six 72-bit DDR4-3200 PHYs and memory controllers surrounding everything. This model features a pretty good selection of I/O for a server CPU, as there are five PCIe 4.0 x16 (4x4) interfaces, with three supporting CCIX 1.0. You can check out more pictures below and see the annotations for yourself.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Readlight]

Where they get chip making equipment? China!
ARM is UK patent, right?

 

[Easo]

Not sure how actual it is right now due to Russia loosing access to Taiwan. Otherwise - seems reasonably impressive.

 

[Chaitanya]

Where they get chip making equipment? China!
ARM is UK patent, right?

ARM is owned by Chinese firms.

 

[Chrispy_]

If Putin continues to do things that get Russia sanctioned, these may soon be the only CPUs Russia can use.

 

[Nioktefe]

ARM is owned by Chinese firms.

Softbank is Japanese

 

[Sake]

ARM is owned by Chinese firms.

Softbank is the owner and it is from Japan.

 

[Hofnaerrchen]

Must be an old chip, at least made prior to the sanctions placed on Russia.

From an Washington Post article dated 25th of February: "TSMC has suspended all sales to Russia and to third parties known to supply products to Russia while it sorts through the sanctions rules to ensure it fully complies, according to a person familiar with the company’s business, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters."

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Where they get chip making equipment? China!
ARM is UK patent, right?

And Tsmc uses American IP to manufacture so I agree, I'm surprised they are supplying these to Russia given the sanctions.

 

[Chomiq]

Must be an old chip, at least made prior to the sanctions placed on Russia.

From an Washington Post article dated 25th of February: "TSMC has suspended all sales to Russia and to third parties known to supply products to Russia while it sorts through the sanctions rules to ensure it fully complies, according to a person familiar with the company’s business, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters."

Life finds a way...

 

[Dirt Chip]

so, can it run crysis?

 

[Bomby569]

Sanctions are dumb, now they couldn't care less about IP's, it's all free game.

It's an old CPU obviously, but the chinese are close to 16nm anyway.

 

[Deleted member 185088]

Sanctions are dumb, now they couldn't care less about IP's, it's all free game.

It's an old CPU obviously, but the chinese are close to 16nm anyway.

Sanctions are made by our idiot leaders to punish what they think in their tiny mind the bad guys, and the rest of us normal people suffer.

Good to see Chinese getting close to have better nodes, at least we'll have two sources so when one side gets the stupid pill we could relay on the other one.

 

[xtreemchaos]

I'm ok with it as long as it's not used for war. i don't see the point of punishing everybody in a whole country for the Evil of a few at the Top. I'm 100% behind the Ukraine in fact i have family there.

 

[Fouquin]

It's an old CPU obviously, but the chinese are close to 16nm anyway.

SMIC exceeded 16nm a couple years ago. The Zhaoxin ZX-E cores were proofed on SMIC's 16nm in 2020 (though still ordered from TSMC because SMIC's volume production is substantially lower). They're figuring out how to go below 14nm right now.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Sanctions are made by our idiot leaders to punish what they think in their tiny mind the bad guys, and the rest of us normal people suffer.

Good to see Chinese getting close to have better nodes, at least we'll have two sources so when one side gets the stupid pill we could relay on the other one.

Yeah well America is not being threatened by empirical eye's like most of eastern Europe so I'm all for sanctions on empirical eye's.
And China has Duv 14nm sussed meanwhile the foundrie leaders are eyeing 3Nm so China's got a ways to go yet.

 

[The red spirit]

Sanctions are dumb, now they couldn't care less about IP's, it's all free game.

They are not dumb, they basically got financially choked, which eventually leads to loss of jobs, and that leads to eventually manufacturing capacity collapse and then you end up having no economy or extremely weak one, that is super primitive as basically many things just can't be made as there is lack of materials. Obviously, it isn't that bad there currently, but Russia is deteriorating and running out of time. Not to mention taht millions already left that shithole.

 

[v12dock]

News about something Russian tech related turned into a political debate... Who would have thought

 

[CapNemo72]

Hey guys, let's keep it on tech side:

The design looks quite clean. Wonder what kind of performance this CPU has. I imagine they are using some Linux based OS to run it.
This is obviously server targeted CPU, probably for their web companies.

Wonder, if Chinese would make those CPUs for them, as it seems they have now 7nm possibility, without using EUVL approach that ASML sells.

It would be cool to gather the CPUs from all different countries and have some kind of benchmark run and see where is everyone standing.

Arm is UK company owned by Japanese trust (Softbank). By the way, Softbank is looking for a buyer for Arm. So, if you have some extra money . . . and not wearing leather jasket . . . ;-)

 

[The red spirit]

News about something Russian tech related turned into a political debate... Who would have thought

Russian tech only exists due to geopolitics, basically the same with Chinese tech too.

 

[Vayra86]

Sanctions are made by our idiot leaders to punish what they think in their tiny mind the bad guys, and the rest of us normal people suffer.

Good to see Chinese getting close to have better nodes, at least we'll have two sources so when one side gets the stupid pill we could relay on the other one.

Sanctions or shooting... The US tried shooting in many places, didnt quite work out. The current strategy however does leave a mark. 'The rest of us normal peole suffer'... imagine if you have shells flying over your home, how is that for suffering Oh you pay a bit more for hardware, the agony!

We tried trading, too. Russia chose to cut that line itself, too. The underlying principle was 'no sanctioning or shooting but trading'.

So while we are brainstorming, got a better solution other than trading, sanctions or shooting? Or maybe you prefer shooting In that case, what do you think economies will evolve to? Wealth and luxury?

As for China... Xi is not a guy that shares his cab with you, in case you havent noticed. Theyve invented a wild mix of opportunistic autocratic capitalism. If you want to see Cyberpunk, do register in their social credit system They really are closest to a running beta for it right now. Less bugs than in the game and no heroes to save the day!

Also, nice avatar.

Russian tech only exists due to geopolitics, basically the same with Chinese tech too.

More like current events made tech political. Then again this was inevitable, muxh like how tech companies operate in the political arena. Given the developments a whole lot more is going to get political. Anything scarce will be fought over, simple.

 

[The red spirit]

More like current events made tech political. Then again this was inevitable, muxh like how tech companies operate in the political arena.

Hardly, China basically started messing with x86 due to tensions with US. US started messing with semiconductors out of need for calculations, mostly for research. Meanwhile Russia barely ever cared about semi condunctors at all and all their "innovation" (more like rip offs) is just to skirt around sanctions. And Russia's earliest computers were also born due to that and were essentially reverse engineered versions of westerns computers from literal decades ago. Hell, even semi-Lithuanian Santaka computer was just C64 rip-off. I don't see this Baikal chip as anything else other than rip off of old tech.

 

[Vayra86]

Hardly, China basically started messing with x86 due to tensions with US. US started messing with semiconductors out of need for calculations, mostly for research. Meanwhile Russia barely ever cared about semi condunctors at all and all their "innovation" (more like rip offs) is just to skirt around sanctions. And Russia's earliest computers were also born due to that and were essentially reverse engineered versions of westerns computers from literal decades ago. Hell, even semi-Lithuanian Santaka computer was just C64 rip-off. I don't see this Baikal chip as anything else other than rip off of old tech.

Thats what I said right, these are the current events. The fact is they need chips and they lost access in several ways.

 

[The red spirit]

Thats what I said right, these are the current events. The fact is they need chips and they lost access in several ways.

You said current events. I was writing about how htey were operating since 1950s. THat's not so current anymore.

 

[CapNemo72]

Hardly, China basically started messing with x86 due to tensions with US. US started messing with semiconductors out of need for calculations, mostly for research. Meanwhile Russia barely ever cared about semi condunctors at all and all their "innovation" (more like rip offs) is just to skirt around sanctions. And Russia's earliest computers were also born due to that and were essentially reverse engineered versions of westerns computers from literal decades ago. Hell, even semi-Lithuanian Santaka computer was just C64 rip-off. I don't see this Baikal chip as anything else other than rip off of old tech.

US started messing with semi-conductors because they found out thy could build faster but smaller computers (compared to vacuum tubes based ones) and they rightfully understood it will be the future and very strategic tech to have and master. We know now this. In 1950s however . . .

At the same time, Russians had good tech based on Vacuum tubes with similar performance as their US counterparts, but they foolishly though that it is the way to go and not semi-conductors.
So, they lost the battle there. After that, their only choice was to copy what was on the market. As did many other countries (what do you think, how Japan tech started?). And it takes years to clone someones tech. And at some point, things got so complex, that they can not do even that anymore.

Now, this chip is based on Arm, which would meant, they bought IP from them and have license for it (otherwise TSMC would not made them). So it is not a rip off, just using off the shelf technology.
So, there is nothing dishonest about this chip.

As a tech enthusiast, I like to read these kind of articles as this is widening my perspective on IT world. World I felt in love in 1984. And loved it still with the same passion.