Loongson Technology, a semiconductor company from China, has announced major advancements in its CPU development and future plans during the 2024 Loongson Industrial Ecosystem Conference. The chairman, Hu Weiwu, discussed the latest updates related to their three key product categories: high-performance CPUs, embedded SoCs, and MCU microcontrollers.
Recent Developments in CPUs
The latest desktop CPU offered by Loongson, the Loongson 3A6000, stands strong against 14nm x86 processors. Operating at 2.5 GHz, it matches the performance of Intel's 3.6 GHz Core i3-10100, demonstrating Loongson's focus on optimizing design for enhanced performance without relying on the latest technology.
Future Plans and Innovations
Looking to the future, the company is developing the 3C6000 server CPU, which will aim to rival 10nm x86 processors. Additionally, their forthcoming desktop CPU, the 3B6600M, is expected to compete with 7nm x86 processors, potentially lining up against Intel's 12th and 13th-gen Core chips in the mid-to-high-end segments.
Loongson is also experimenting with turbo frequency technology to achieve speeds of 3 GHz. Furthermore, they are incorporating x86 binary translation instructions, ensuring that Windows applications and systems will run smoothly on their CPUs.
Graphics and More
On the graphics front, Loongson is in the process of developing the 9A1000 GPGPU chip, with initial versions anticipated to be released in the first half of 2025. They aim for this chip to be comparable to AMD's RX 550, capable of handling AI tasks and supporting technologies such as OpenGL 4.0, PCIe 4.0, HDMI 2.1, and DP 2.1.
Loongson's focus isn't solely on CPUs; they have made significant strides in their embedded SoCs and MCU microcontrollers, now in their fourth generation. These chips are meeting or exceeding market expectations in terms of performance and value.
Their proprietary LoongArch architecture, introduced four years ago, has passed intellectual property assessments and weathered independent lawsuits. It enjoys full support from operating system kernels, BIOS, and six prominent compilers, which include GCC, LLVM, GOLANG, Java, JavaScript, and .NET.
