Loongson 3A5000 officially released: the first processor chip with independent instruction system LoongArch

IT House July 23 News According to the official account of Godson Zhongke, Godson Zhongke Technology Co., Ltd. officially released the Godson 3A5000 processor a few days ago. This product is the first processor chip that adopts the independent instruction system LoongArch, and its performance has achieved a great leap, representing the latest milestone achievement in the field of independent CPU design in my country.

The Loongson 3A5000 processor is the first processor chip that adopts the LoongArch independent instruction system. LoongArch is based on Loongson’s 20 years of CPU development and ecological construction accumulation, from top-level architecture, to instruction functions and ABI standards, all independently designed without foreign authorization. LoongArch has absorbed the latest achievements in the evolution of modern instruction system, and has higher operating efficiency. The number of dynamically executed instructions can be reduced by an average of 10%-20% when the same source code is compiled into LoongArch compared to MIPS previously supported by Loongson. LoongArch fully considers the needs of compatible ecology, integrates the main functional characteristics of international mainstream instruction systems such as X86 and ARM, and relies on the technical accumulation and innovation of the Loongson team in binary translation for more than ten years to achieve cross-instruction platform application compatibility.

IT House learned that the Loongson 3A5000 processor is clocked at 2.3GHz-2.5GHz and contains 4 processor cores. Each processor core uses a 64-bit superscalar GS464V autonomous micro-architecture, including 4 fixed-point units, 2 256-bit vector arithmetic units and 2 memory access units. Loongson 3A5000 integrates two 64-bit DDR4-3200 controllers that support ECC check, and four HyperTransport 3.0 controllers that support multi-processor data consistency. Loongson 3A5000 supports fine power management functions such as dynamic shutdown of main module clocks, dynamic frequency conversion of main clock domains, and dynamic voltage regulation of main voltage domains.

According to the test results of domestic third-party testing institutions, the fixed-point and floating-point single-core Base scores of the Loongson 3A5000 processor running SPEC CPU2006 in the GCC compilation environment both reached 26 points or more, and the quad-core score reached more than 80 points. The Unixbench single-thread score of the Loongson 3A5000 desktop system based on the domestic operating system is over 1700 points, and the four-thread score is over 4200 points. The above test scores have approached the level of mainstream desktop CPUs in the market, and are in a leading position in domestic desktop CPUs.

Compared with the previous generation Loongson 3A4000 processor, the Loongson 3A5000 processor improves performance by more than 50% and reduces power consumption by more than 30% on the basis of maintaining pin compatibility. In terms of complex document processing, browser opening, 3D engine acceleration, 4K high-definition soft solution, and various business software processing, the Loongson 3A5000 computer user experience has been significantly improved.

The Loongson 3A5000 achieves a deep integration of autonomy and security. All modules in Loongson 3A5000, including CPU core, memory controller and related PHY, high-speed IO interface controller and related PHY, phase-locked loop, on-chip multi-port register file, etc., are independently designed. The Loongson 3A5000 implements a special mechanism in the processor core to prevent “Spectre” and “Meltdown” attacks, and supports access control mechanisms such as operating system kernel stack protection in the processor core. The Loongson 3A5000 processor integrates a secure and trusted module to support a trusted computing system. Loongson 3A5000 has built-in hardware encryption module, which supports commercial secret SM2/3/4 and above algorithms, among which SM3/4 password processing performance reaches more than 5Gbps.

At present, the three major compilers GCC, LLVM, GoLang and the three major virtual machines Java, JavaScript, . NET has been developed. Loongnix, the basic version of the Loongson operating system for information applications, and LoongOS, the basic version of the Loongson operating system for industrial control and terminal applications, have been released. The binary translation system LATX from X86 to LoongArch has been able to run some X86/Windows applications. Domestic operating systems such as Tongxin UOS and Kylin Kylin have realized support for the Loongson 3A5000. Dozens of domestic well-known complete machine companies, ODM manufacturers, industry terminal developers, etc. have developed hundreds of complete machine solution products based on the Loongson 3A5000 processor, including desktop computers, notebooks, all-in-one computers, financial equipment, industry terminals, security equipment , network equipment, industrial control modules, etc.

Loongson Zhongke also launched a new generation of server processor Loongson 3C5000L based on Loongson 3A5000. The Loongson 3C5000L integrates four 3A5000 silicon chips through packaging to form a 16-core processor. The SPEC CPU2006 performance score of the four-way 64-core server based on the Loongson 3C5000L can reach more than 900 points, which fully meets the performance requirements of cloud computing and data centers for domestic CPUs.

The Loongson 3A5000 chip is code-named “KMYC70” to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Korean War. The Loongson 3C5000, a server-specific chip based on the core of Loongson 3A5000, has been designed and delivered to tape out in the first half of 2021. The chip code is “CPC100” to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party.

Loongson Zhongke said that the release of Loongson 3A5000 marks that after 20 years of accumulation by the Loongson team, the product performance has completed supplementary lessons, approaching the international mainstream level, and will help Loongson Zhongke start from technological upgrading to comprehensive ecological construction, and from a policy-oriented market. It is a new journey of opening up the market and moving from the “inevitable kingdom” of tracking development to the “freedom kingdom” of independent development. The release of Loongson 3A5000 eloquently proves that the performance of self-developed CPU can completely surpass that of imported technology CPU by insisting on self-reliance in technology rather than introducing foreign technology, and taking the road of “market-driven technology” rather than “market-for-technology”.