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人民的處理器:擁抱中國國產計算機芯片By Christopher Mims
People’s Processor: Embrace China’s Homegrown Computer Chips
人民的處理器:擁抱中國國產計算機芯片
(翻譯:foo)
By Christopher Mims
December 21, 2009
|
10:00 am
|
Wired Jan 2010
Imagine that your nation is entirely dependent on a belligerent and economically unstable foreign country for a precious commodity. Imagine that wit
hout that commodity, your entire society would grind to a halt. Got it? OK, now imagine that your nation is China, the belligerent nation is the US, and the commodity is CPUs.
試想一下你們國家的一種貴重商品完全依賴於一個經濟上不穩定的並且好鬥外國.試想一下沒有了那種商品,你們國家整個社會將陷於停頓. 明白了? 那好,把你的國家想象為中國,好鬥的國家是美國,貴重商品是CPU
For China to maintain its blistering pace of growth — about 8 percent over the course of the global financial meltdown — the nation’s leaders know they must transition to a postindustrial economy as rapidly as they transitioned to a free-market economy 30 years ago.
在全球金融崩盤的情況下, 為了維持快速約8%增長,國家領導者們意識到必須象30年前轉換成自由市場經濟那樣快地轉換到後工業經濟.計算機是做到這一點的關鍵.國家對計算機的需求龐大.中國人在2008年購買了3千九百六十萬台計算機.這一數值隻會上升--因為仍有75%的人口根本接觸不到互聯網.
Computers are key to doing that. The country’s demand for PCs is enormous. The Chinese purchased 39.6 million of them in 2008. And that number is only going to climb — 75 percent of the population still doesn’t have access to the Internet. But the vast majority of PCs sold in China are running central processing units created by the US companies Intel and AMD. This poses a range of problems; perhaps the biggest is that it locks China into paying first-world prices for CPUs. China is also deeply reluctant to build military hardware on top of Western processors. (And if that sounds paranoid, keep in mind that there’s concern in Washington over whether the US military should use American-designed chips that have merely been manufactured overseas.)
但在中國售出的絕大多數的PC運行的中央處理器都是美國的INTEL和AMD製造的--這就帶來了一係列問題,也許最大的一個就是鎖定中國以發達國家的價格購買CPU.中國也非常不願意用西方國家的芯片製造軍事裝備(如果在這點上認為中國想得太多了的話,那末請記住華盛頓也擔心那些由美國軍方設計的而僅僅在海外生產的芯片的安全問題
Given those issues, it’s not hard to understand why the Chinese government sponsored an ambitious initiative to create a sort of national processor. Work on the Loongson, or Dragon Chip, began in 2001 at the Institute of Computing Technology in Beijing. The goal was to create a chip that would be versatile enough to drive anything from an industrial robot to a supercomputer. One of the first Loongson-powered computers appeared in 2006, an ultracompact desktop PC known as the Fuloong (Lucky Dragon). It was built by the Chinese company Lemote, which soon followed that up with a cheap netbook. And China is now boasting that a third-generation multicore Loongson chip, currently in the prototype stage, will be used to power a petaflop supercomputer.
有了這些問題,就不難理解為什麽中國政府資助一項雄心勃勃的計劃來生產一種國產芯片, 計算所2001年開始龍芯芯片開發工作,目標是生產一種用途廣泛的芯片以便能夠用於任何場合--從驅動工業機器人到超級計算機.龍芯驅動的一種計算機2006年麵世,這種超便攜式台式pc叫做福龍(幸運龍).他由一家中國公司lemote製造,很快又推出了廉價上網本.現在,中國自豪地宣布第三代多核龍芯芯片,現正於原型機狀態,將用於驅動千億級超級計算機.
China’s decision to roll its own processors has gone largely unnoticed in the West. It shouldn’t. The country is incredibly motivated for the project to succeed — it has become a cornerstone of the National High-Tech R&D Program embarked upon in 1986. And we know that the Chinese are very good at leveraging economies of scale. The Loongson chip is going to change more than just computer-ownership rates in the most populous nation on the planet. It’s going to have a profound impact on computers everywhere.
中國決心推出自己的芯片沒有引起西方廣泛注意.這是不應該的.中國誌在必得地要讓這一項目成功--它已成為863國家高科技研發計劃的重點項目. 我們都知道中國人善於權衡規模經營.龍芯芯片將不僅僅改變這一個星球人口最大國家的計算機擁有率.它將對全球的計算機產生深遠影響
人民的處理器:擁抱中國國產計算機芯片
(翻譯:foo)
By Christopher Mims
December 21, 2009
|
10:00 am
|
Wired Jan 2010
Imagine that your nation is entirely dependent on a belligerent and economically unstable foreign country for a precious commodity. Imagine that wit
hout that commodity, your entire society would grind to a halt. Got it? OK, now imagine that your nation is China, the belligerent nation is the US, and the commodity is CPUs.
試想一下你們國家的一種貴重商品完全依賴於一個經濟上不穩定的並且好鬥外國.試想一下沒有了那種商品,你們國家整個社會將陷於停頓. 明白了? 那好,把你的國家想象為中國,好鬥的國家是美國,貴重商品是CPU
For China to maintain its blistering pace of growth — about 8 percent over the course of the global financial meltdown — the nation’s leaders know they must transition to a postindustrial economy as rapidly as they transitioned to a free-market economy 30 years ago.
在全球金融崩盤的情況下, 為了維持快速約8%增長,國家領導者們意識到必須象30年前轉換成自由市場經濟那樣快地轉換到後工業經濟.計算機是做到這一點的關鍵.國家對計算機的需求龐大.中國人在2008年購買了3千九百六十萬台計算機.這一數值隻會上升--因為仍有75%的人口根本接觸不到互聯網.
Computers are key to doing that. The country’s demand for PCs is enormous. The Chinese purchased 39.6 million of them in 2008. And that number is only going to climb — 75 percent of the population still doesn’t have access to the Internet. But the vast majority of PCs sold in China are running central processing units created by the US companies Intel and AMD. This poses a range of problems; perhaps the biggest is that it locks China into paying first-world prices for CPUs. China is also deeply reluctant to build military hardware on top of Western processors. (And if that sounds paranoid, keep in mind that there’s concern in Washington over whether the US military should use American-designed chips that have merely been manufactured overseas.)
但在中國售出的絕大多數的PC運行的中央處理器都是美國的INTEL和AMD製造的--這就帶來了一係列問題,也許最大的一個就是鎖定中國以發達國家的價格購買CPU.中國也非常不願意用西方國家的芯片製造軍事裝備(如果在這點上認為中國想得太多了的話,那末請記住華盛頓也擔心那些由美國軍方設計的而僅僅在海外生產的芯片的安全問題
Given those issues, it’s not hard to understand why the Chinese government sponsored an ambitious initiative to create a sort of national processor. Work on the Loongson, or Dragon Chip, began in 2001 at the Institute of Computing Technology in Beijing. The goal was to create a chip that would be versatile enough to drive anything from an industrial robot to a supercomputer. One of the first Loongson-powered computers appeared in 2006, an ultracompact desktop PC known as the Fuloong (Lucky Dragon). It was built by the Chinese company Lemote, which soon followed that up with a cheap netbook. And China is now boasting that a third-generation multicore Loongson chip, currently in the prototype stage, will be used to power a petaflop supercomputer.
有了這些問題,就不難理解為什麽中國政府資助一項雄心勃勃的計劃來生產一種國產芯片, 計算所2001年開始龍芯芯片開發工作,目標是生產一種用途廣泛的芯片以便能夠用於任何場合--從驅動工業機器人到超級計算機.龍芯驅動的一種計算機2006年麵世,這種超便攜式台式pc叫做福龍(幸運龍).他由一家中國公司lemote製造,很快又推出了廉價上網本.現在,中國自豪地宣布第三代多核龍芯芯片,現正於原型機狀態,將用於驅動千億級超級計算機.
China’s decision to roll its own processors has gone largely unnoticed in the West. It shouldn’t. The country is incredibly motivated for the project to succeed — it has become a cornerstone of the National High-Tech R&D Program embarked upon in 1986. And we know that the Chinese are very good at leveraging economies of scale. The Loongson chip is going to change more than just computer-ownership rates in the most populous nation on the planet. It’s going to have a profound impact on computers everywhere.
中國決心推出自己的芯片沒有引起西方廣泛注意.這是不應該的.中國誌在必得地要讓這一項目成功--它已成為863國家高科技研發計劃的重點項目. 我們都知道中國人善於權衡規模經營.龍芯芯片將不僅僅改變這一個星球人口最大國家的計算機擁有率.它將對全球的計算機產生深遠影響
For starters, it could help usher in an era of true post-Windows PCs. Because the Loongson eschews the standard x86 chip architecture, it can’t run the full version of Microsoft Windows without software emulation. To encourage adoption of the processor, the Institute of Computing Technology is adapting everything from Java to OpenOffice for the Loongson chip and releasing it all under a free software license. Lemote positions its netbook as the only computer in the world with nothing but free software, right down to the BIOS burned into the motherboard chip that tells it how to boot up. It’s for this last reason that Richard “GNU/Linux” Stallman, granddaddy of the free software movement, uses a laptop with a Loongson chip.
對於初學者,它將有助於引導他們進入真正的後windows pc 時代.因為回避了標準的x86構架,如果沒有模擬器的話就不能運行所有的MS確windows. 為了推廣芯片,計算所為龍芯采用了從java 到openOffice並且以自由軟件授權形式發布. lemote把它的上網本定位於世界上唯一的完全運行自由軟件的計算機包括燒入主板的BIOS.正是由於後一個原因,自由軟件的"GNU/Linux"
Richard Stallman 使用龍芯筆記本
Loongson could also reshape the global PC business. “Compared to Intel and IBM, we are still in the cradle,” concedes Weiwu Hu, chief architect of the Loongson. But he also notes that China’s enormous domestic demand isn’t the only potential market for his CPU. “I think many other poor countries, such as those in Africa, need low-cost solutions,” he says. Cheap Chinese processors could corner emerging markets in the developing world (and be a perk for the nation’s allies and trade partners).
龍芯也可能改變全球計算機產業格局."跟intel 和IBM 相比,我們還處於起步階段"龍芯總構架師胡偉武說.但他也提到中國巨大的國內市場需求不是唯一的. "我想許多貧窮國家,象非洲,需要低成本的解決方案" 廉價的中國產處理器可以在新興發展中國家市場占一席之地.
And that’s just the beginning. “These chips have implications for space exploration, intelligence gathering, industrialization, encryption, and international commerce,” says Tom Halfhill, a senior analyst for Microprocessor Report.
但這僅僅是開始,"這一係列芯片潛在用於宇宙開發,情報搜集,工業化,加密,國際貿易" Tom Halfhill如此評論到,他是<> 高級分析專家
Will Loongson-based PCs make inroads with average consumers in the West? You can already order a Lemote netbook online. It isn’t any cheaper or better than other entry-level netbooks, and reviews from geeky hardware enthusiast sites are less than enthusiastic. But these crude first-generation products hark back to another wave of boxy, underpowered consumer goods that were initially regarded as mere curiosities in the West. They were called Toyotas.
西方國家的普通消費者能得到龍芯電腦嗎? 你可以在網上訂購.它不比其它入門級的上網本便宜或更好,硬件愛好者的評論還談不上熱情.但是這些原始的第一代產品讓我們回想起另外一種小小的,不甚了了的消費產品,剛開始時也被西方認為隻不過是些小玩意兒----- 它的名字叫豐田
Christopher Mims (christopher.mims @gmail.com) wrote about new drilling technologies in issue 17.09.
對於初學者,它將有助於引導他們進入真正的後windows pc 時代.因為回避了標準的x86構架,如果沒有模擬器的話就不能運行所有的MS確windows. 為了推廣芯片,計算所為龍芯采用了從java 到openOffice並且以自由軟件授權形式發布. lemote把它的上網本定位於世界上唯一的完全運行自由軟件的計算機包括燒入主板的BIOS.正是由於後一個原因,自由軟件的"GNU/Linux"
Richard Stallman 使用龍芯筆記本
Loongson could also reshape the global PC business. “Compared to Intel and IBM, we are still in the cradle,” concedes Weiwu Hu, chief architect of the Loongson. But he also notes that China’s enormous domestic demand isn’t the only potential market for his CPU. “I think many other poor countries, such as those in Africa, need low-cost solutions,” he says. Cheap Chinese processors could corner emerging markets in the developing world (and be a perk for the nation’s allies and trade partners).
龍芯也可能改變全球計算機產業格局."跟intel 和IBM 相比,我們還處於起步階段"龍芯總構架師胡偉武說.但他也提到中國巨大的國內市場需求不是唯一的. "我想許多貧窮國家,象非洲,需要低成本的解決方案" 廉價的中國產處理器可以在新興發展中國家市場占一席之地.
And that’s just the beginning. “These chips have implications for space exploration, intelligence gathering, industrialization, encryption, and international commerce,” says Tom Halfhill, a senior analyst for Microprocessor Report.
但這僅僅是開始,"這一係列芯片潛在用於宇宙開發,情報搜集,工業化,加密,國際貿易" Tom Halfhill如此評論到,他是<
Will Loongson-based PCs make inroads with average consumers in the West? You can already order a Lemote netbook online. It isn’t any cheaper or better than other entry-level netbooks, and reviews from geeky hardware enthusiast sites are less than enthusiastic. But these crude first-generation products hark back to another wave of boxy, underpowered consumer goods that were initially regarded as mere curiosities in the West. They were called Toyotas.
西方國家的普通消費者能得到龍芯電腦嗎? 你可以在網上訂購.它不比其它入門級的上網本便宜或更好,硬件愛好者的評論還談不上熱情.但是這些原始的第一代產品讓我們回想起另外一種小小的,不甚了了的消費產品,剛開始時也被西方認為隻不過是些小玩意兒----- 它的名字叫豐田
Christopher Mims (christopher.mims @gmail.com) wrote about new drilling technologies in issue 17.09.
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