On October 19, a major Sankei news was released, which shocked China's semiconductor industry. On the same day at the 2021 Yunqi Conference, Pingtou, a semiconductor company under Alibaba, released the self-developed cloud chip Yitian 710. As the current "ARM server chip with the strongest performance in the industry", the successful development of Etian 710 indicates that Pingtou has the ability to develop and design large and complex general-purpose processor chips and ranks among the top chip companies.
"Yitian" unsheathed
Although this news is surprising, it is not without a trace. In May of this year, when Alibaba held the Cloud Summit in Beijing, Zhang Jianfeng, President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence and Dean of Dharma Academy, announced that Alibaba Cloud has optimized the self-developed cloud operating system "Flying" to make it compatible with x86, ARM, etc. Chip architecture. At that time, he also revealed that one of Alibaba Cloud's goals in 2021 is to "build a deep foundation", and plans to successively launch a series of core hardware and software products, including its own chips.
Sure enough, after the launch of Etian 710, Zhang Jianfeng said that the former came into being based on Alibaba Cloud's business strategy of "one cloud, multiple cores" and "deep foundation" to meet diversified computing needs. He also emphasized, "This chip is not for sale, and it is mainly for Alibaba Cloud's own use." It is reported that as Alibaba's first CPU chip "born for the cloud", Etian 710 will deploy applications in Alibaba Cloud data center.
In terms of parameters, Etian 710 chip is built with the industry's most advanced 5nm process, and a single chip can accommodate up to 60 billion transistors. It is based on the latest ARMv9 architecture and contains a 128-core CPU with a clock speed of up to 3.2GHz. In terms of memory and interfaces, Eten 710 integrates industry-leading DDR5, PCIe5.0 and other technologies, which can effectively increase the transfer rate of the chip and adapt to different application scenarios of the cloud.
As we all know, the 5nm process has extremely high requirements for energy density and the layout of the internal structure of the chip. For this reason, the Pingtou Ge key research team has flexibly scheduled up to 30 different EDA software, deeply customized clock networks and customized IP during the development process of Etian 710. Technology, also adopts advanced multi-chip stacking technology, and finally successfully achieved the balance and optimization of chip performance and power consumption.
Cloud is the largest application scenario for high-performance server chips. Yitian 710 combines leading chip design technology with the unique requirements of cloud scenarios. In order to solve the bandwidth bottleneck under the conditions of high concurrency in cloud computing, a special optimization design for on-chip interconnection is carried out. The new flow control algorithm effectively relieves system congestion and significantly improves system efficiency and scalability. In the standard test set SPECint2017, the score of Etian 710 reached 440, which exceeded the industry benchmark by 20%, and the energy efficiency ratio increased by more than 50%, which can effectively help Alibaba Cloud data center energy saving and emission reduction.
At present, Alibaba Cloud is fully compatible with mainstream chip architectures such as x86, ARM, and RISC-V. The Hanguang 800 chip, which was launched at the 2019 Yunqi Conference, has been deployed in Alibaba Cloud on a large scale, providing differentiated choices for cloud companies. It is widely used in scenarios such as search recommendation and live video broadcasting. Etian 710 further enriches the underlying technical architecture of Alibaba Cloud, and cooperates with the "Flying" operating system to provide customers with more cost-effective and high-quality cloud services in the future.
"Chuangxin" Breakthrough
I have to say that Ali was forced to "make a core". Throughout the global advanced manufacturing industry, from digital home appliances to new energy vehicles, the development and growth of any field cannot be separated from a small chip. Authoritative data show that the scale of the global semiconductor market this year may reach 488 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 10.9%.
At present, although there are nearly 300,000 chip companies in China, most of them are at the low end of the industry chain. Due to the high barriers to entry and the difficulty of research and development, the core products and key technologies such as general-purpose CPU/GPU, memory, advanced digital circuit manufacturing, and high-power devices that stand at the top of the integrated circuit industry have long been used by a few leading companies in the United States, Europe, Japan, and South Korea. control.
Last year, China's total imports of integrated circuit products reached 350 billion U.S. dollars. However, the development of domestic emerging industries such as cloud computing, big data, 5G, AI, and industrial Internet are difficult to get rid of external chip dependence. This sense of crisis has continued to increase as the West has increased its monopoly blockade and the impact of the epidemic in recent years. If China wants to achieve leapfrog development from "the world's electronic information product factory" to "the commanding heights of global digital technology", it must win this high-end chip industry "top of the pyramid".
Victory can't wait, dare to fight is wonderful. As early as 2018, Ali fully acquired Zhongtian Micro and integrated with Dharma Academy's self-developed chip business to become the now-famous flathead brother. The latter made an extraordinary move. The first AI reasoning chip Hanguang 800 was released the following year and put into mass production. After the large-scale deployment of this chip in the Alibaba data center, it perfectly passed the 2020 "Double Eleven" super computing power. Test, and strongly promote the high-end upgrade of China's semiconductor industry.
However, Ali did not lie down on the merits of the book. Instead, it made persistent efforts and launched the world's first 5nm process server chip Etian 710. As a result, Ali became the second Chinese technology company to master the self-developed server CPU technology. And the world's third cloud computing manufacturer with self-developed ARM server chips.
In addition to increasing self-research, Ali also implemented a series of very forward-looking strategic layouts through investment. Prior to this, Ali has invested in companies such as Cambrian and Shenjian. In October of this year, Ali again strategically invested in Feiteng Information Technology Co., Ltd., a domestic CPU research and development company that is also based on the ARM architecture.
Obviously, Ali's efforts are all to further strengthen its own strength, and use its technical strength to escort its own business in the turbulent international situation. Moreover, after more than 10 years of development, Ali has established a huge and complete software ecosystem. Now with the advent of Etian 710 and the production of vector products, in the future, with the "soft and hard combination" of the two, it is bound to burst out "1+1>2" Great synergy.
Post time: Jun-03-2019