Loongson Begins to Enable CPUs That Could Rival AMD and Intel Offerings

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Loongson's posted the first Linux patches for its LS 3A6000-series processors

Loongson
(Image credit: Loongson)

Loongson has posted the first Linux patches to enable support for its next generation 3A6000-series processors, reports Phoronix. The company expects its upcoming LoongArch-based CPUs AMD's Zen 3 in instruction per clock (IPC), which will enable Loongson to challenge leading processor manufacturers.

Loongson shared details about the progress of its 3A6000-series CPU development last November when it revealed that the design phase of the project had been concluded and that samples of the processors would be available in the first half of 2023.

Now, the company's engineers posted patches enabling the 3A6000's new memory management unit (MMU) or page table walker (PTW) that can handle address translation exceptions (like TLBI, TLBL, TLBS, TLBM) directly in the hardware, boosting performance. The CPU will only require software handling in situations like page faults.

Another feature enabled by another patch for Loongson's 3A6000's processors is moving away from full completion barrier (dbar 0) hint to a set of more fine-tuned hints for different memory barriers, which can improve performance.

CPU enablement in Linux is an important milestone for any processor development cycle, since it signals that development is proceeding. Enablement alone does not necessarily mean that the new chip is about to be taped out, or is progressing rapidly, but at least it means that its designers are confident enough about its success.

Matching IPC performance of AMD's Zen 3 microarchitecture or Intel's Tiger Lake microarchitecture is a big deal for Loongson, whose current CPUs are considerably slower than processors from the leading suppliers. Meanwhile, it should be noted that IPC alone does not necessarily mean that Loongson's 2nd Generation CPUs that rely on its LoongArch microarchitecture will be as fast as AMD's Ryzen 5000-series or Intel's 11th generation Core processors. Clock speed and other aspects of the platform will also play a role.

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Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

25 Comments Comment from the forums
  • flashflood101
    What nonsense.
    Loongson is years away from producing anything to rival leading CPUs.
    Tom's Hardware should be careful what it allows certain contributors to post - credibility, once lost, is difficult to regain.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    flashflood101 said:
    Loongson is years away from producing anything to rival leading CPUs.
    Tom's Hardware should be careful what it allows certain contributors to post
    They were careful to point out:
    "it should be noted that IPC alone does not necessarily mean that Loongson's 2nd Generation CPUs that rely on its LoongArch microarchitecture will be as fast as AMD's Ryzen 5000-series or Intel's 11th generation Core processors. Clock speed and other aspects of the platform will also play a role."
    Even as far as the IPC claims, I agree that we need to take the designer's claims with a grain of salt. I'm reserving judgement until someone manages to get a production-grade sample for independent testing.
    Reply
  • craigss
    flashflood101 said:
    What nonsense.
    Loongson is years away from producing anything to rival leading CPUs.
    Tom's Hardware should be careful what it allows certain contributors to post - credibility, once lost, is difficult to regain.
    I think folks in the West are beyond dumb if they dont expect China to surpass them in CPU and other tech developments in the near future, after all we have laid the foundations for this by building every single electronics component in that part of the world and financing huge budgets the likes of which most western countries can only dream of dipping into for tech research and development
    the Godson 1 was a 233 mhz cpu launched in 2002 here we are 20 years later with multiple cores and there own arch thats outstanding progress, where do you think they will be in 5 years time?
    Sanctions just force them to develop there way out of the issue and will backfire, we in the west need to take away the budgets by building our own stuff at home!
    Reply
  • newtechldtech
    Let them try .. by the time they reach Intel and AMD performance , Quantum computers will be everywhere and will crush them.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    craigss said:
    I think folks in the West are beyond dumb if they dont expect China to surpass them in CPU and other tech developments in the near future, after all we have laid the foundations for this by building every single electronics component in that part of the world
    Why do you assume they will surpass the West? While the rise of semiconductor fabs in Korea and Taiwan have been truly impressive, most of the fundamental hardware & software involved in semiconductor design & manufacturing still comes from western companies. Western CPU designs still remain unsurpassed.

    craigss said:
    where do you think they will be in 5 years time?
    They've published roadmaps, if you really want to know. It's nothing mind-blowing, from what I recall.

    craigss said:
    Sanctions just force them to develop there way out of the issue and will backfire,
    Sanctions are a short-to-medium -term tool. In the long-term, they were on track to have a competitive domestic industry, either way. The sanctions should be used as leverage. It's not clear to me what's the gameplan, but I sure hope there's something besides the sanctions, themselves.

    newtechldtech said:
    Let them try .. by the time they reach Intel and AMD performance , Quantum computers will be everywhere and will crush them.
    China is actually very competitive, in Quantum Computing. It's a lot easier to take the lead in a new field, than to become competitive in an established one.

    Also, quantum computers aren't a direct replacement for classical computers, in most cases. The two technologies are complementary, and will exist side-by-side for the foreseeable future.
    Reply
  • edzieba
    newtechldtech said:
    Let them try .. by the time they reach Intel and AMD performance , Quantum computers will be everywhere and will crush them.
    Thinking Quantum Computers will somehow 'crush'/surpass/etc classical computation devices is like expecting FPUs to make integer logic obsolete.
    Reply
  • Firestone
    Doesn't the CCP require these chips to come with hardware back doors so the govt can spy on all data going through the CPU
    Reply
  • gdmaclew
    The company expects its upcoming LoongArch-based CPUs AMD's Zen 3 in instruction per clock (IPC), which will enable Loongson to challenge leading processor manufacturers.

    I have read this sentence backwards and forwards and I can't make any sense of it. Can somone please tell me what he is trying to say?
    Reply
  • newtechldtech
    edzieba said:
    Thinking Quantum Computers will somehow 'crush'/surpass/etc classical computation devices is like expecting FPUs to make integer logic obsolete.

    Not exactly ... imagine CPU without FPU today like in old times ?
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Firestone said:
    Doesn't the CCP require these chips to come with hardware back doors so the govt can spy on all data going through the CPU
    With SecureBoot, you don't need the CPU to have backdoors. You can just limit which OS images you sign to those with backdoors at the OS level, and the machine can't boot anything else.
    Reply