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Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors

miketheterrible: Posts : 5032
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Post n°526

Re: Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors

miketheterrible on Thu Oct 22, 2020 11:14 pm

kvs wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:Performance wise of Elbrus 8SM was around a xeon of the more recent series. So I don't know why all the hate KVS.

Also, this is a prototype. Wait till newer prototypes are out.

Spare the hyperbole. Hate is an obvious mischaracterization of my post. Nobody is supposed to worship everything that MCST does.

Here is a fact for you: the Elbrus chips are supposed to be used in Russian HPC systems. So my comments are right on target.
Hiding behind "military applications" is pure BS. That would make Russia a military-kolonka that does not care about it civilian economy.
If Russia want to support domestic science and engineering it needs to stop artificially limiting its prime domestic CPU and get people
who have a clue on the job. Right now it looks like the chip is being treated like it is intended for $50 appliances. Ironic given its
touted "military" credentials.

Where is the improved FPU prototype? I guess it's not a priority.

Don't be aggressive when you don't need to be.

I'll put it simple: they have a chip equivalent to a Intel 4960x in terms of performance. While, yes a change to the Elbrus architecture can yield better results, it's still an amazing leap from nearly nothing to this. We already seen Elbrus 4S and 8SM in action.

I got myself a 10500 ES chip here. It is quite different than overall 10400f processor. But hey, whatever.

magnumcromagnon

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Post n°527

Re: Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors

magnumcromagnon on Sun Nov 01, 2020 12:31 am

The most powerful Russian processor will be 32-core and made according to the 7 nm technology

Representatives of MCST JSC reported that this year the company will start developing the most

fast processor Elbrus next generation. It will be used for high performance computing and storage systems. It is planned that Elbrus-32C will be created using 7 nm technology, and the first working samples of the Russian 32-core processor will appear in 2025.

The first plans for the Elbrus-32S told the general director of "MCST" Alexander Kim in an interview with the magazine "Expert".

According to Kim, MCST has already shown that it is able to create technologies and products within the country that can provide adequate information security and correspond in performance to foreign counterparts. Now the company has a new goal - to design and manufacture Elbrus-32C.

According to the CNEWS portal, the representative of MCST, Alexander Kim, explained that the new microprocessor will be made according to the 7 nm technology, although earlier versions of 6 nm were called.

Other characteristics and parameters of Elbrus-32S MCST have not disclosed at the moment.

Although it is planned that Elbrus-32C will be designed domestically and based on Russian technologies, it will be manufactured at the Taiwanese TSMC factory. Russian manufacturers do not have the equipment to manufacture such systems.

Technical characteristics of Elbrus processors of the past (4C), current (8C), new (8CB) and future (16C) generations in comparison with similar Intel x86 processors.

Earlier in early October 2020, the Elbrus architecture developer announced the receipt of the first engineering sample of the Elbrus-16S microprocessor. The launch of serial production of Elbrus-16S is scheduled for the end of 2021. Currently, the company's specialists are conducting research on the resulting engineering sample. They have already been able to load the Elbrus Linux operating system on it.

Also in October 2020, MCST released a new version of the Elbrus Linux distribution - a general-purpose operating system of the GNU / Linux family for computers based on the Elbrus, SPARC and x86 architecture. The sixth version of "Elbrus Linux" is based on a modified Linux 5.4 kernel and includes technical solutions for Debian GNU / Linux and the LFS project. The distribution kit "Elbrus Linux" 6.0 (64-bit) for PCs with x86 processor architecture is available for download to all users free of charge. List of packages "Elbrus Linux" 6.0.

https://vpk.name/news/459093_samyi_moshnyi_rossiiskii_processor_budet_32-yadernym_i_sdelannym_po_tehnorme_7_nm.html

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Big_Gazza

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Post n°528

Re: Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors

Big_Gazza on Mon Nov 02, 2020 12:54 am

Although it is planned that Elbrus-32C will be designed domestically and based on Russian technologies, it will be manufactured at the Taiwanese TSMC factory. Russian manufacturers do not have the equipment to manufacture such systems.

Thats a fail in my book. What is stopping the US from being a pack of c*nts and leaning on TSMC to withdraw their servces like they did for Huawei and its advanced chipsets???

Import substitution still has a long way to go.

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LMFS

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Post n°529

Re: Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors

LMFS on Mon Nov 02, 2020 1:46 am

Big_Gazza wrote:Thats a fail in my book. What is stopping the US from being a pack of c*nts and leaning on TSMC to withdraw their servces like they did for Huawei and its advanced chipsets???

Import substitution still has a long way to go.

Agree, but such technology is ultra-expensive and difficult to implement. China and Russia are in the same boat in terms of substituting Taiwanese and Korean technology tied to Western pressure, they should team up for this.

kvs

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Post n°530

Re: Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors

kvs on Mon Nov 02, 2020 2:17 am

MCST is relying on lithography shrinking to get more out of the design. This is only part of the proper approach. The other one
is optimizing the transistor layout. I am assuming something like this is being done, but originally the TSMC production line was
using off the shelf transistor block layouts. Having a CPU design is not the same as having an optimized rendering in silicon.

We have seen 32 core CPUs from AMD that are using 12 nm "FinFet":

https://www.globalfoundries.com/sites/default/files/product-briefs/pb-12lp-11-web.pdf

The Elbrus had a substantially smaller number of transistors compared to Intel x86 designs when it was first mass produced. That
is why it had ultra low power output. A huge part of the transistor count goes to L1, L2 and even L3 caches in modern
CPUs, but the Elbrus still has a some sort of advantage in terms of lower number of transistors. It most likely has something
to do with its VLIW design and the use of the compiler to do what x86 does in hardware. The Intel Itanium tried this but
was a failed effort to "rip off" the Elbrus since it made no sense of Intel to dabble with such a non sequitur branch to its
hardware focus since the 1970s. Russians are really good at coding and software technology is not trivial and secondary
to hardware.

To wit, the Elbrus 32 core can be rendered on 14 nm. So they are kicking the can down the road in terms of properly laying
out this processor. And 14 nm is actually achievable for Russian IC manufacturers.

https://www.zelenograd.ru/hitech/v-zelenograde-namereny-postroit-fabriku-chipov-28-nanometrov/

We have 28 nm production capacity being deployed. This easily allows 8 core Elbrus processors to be manufactured in
Russia. Relying on TSMC is a bad idea.

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miketheterrible

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Post n°531

Re: Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors

miketheterrible on Mon Nov 02, 2020 9:40 am

Russia may switch to Chinese nodes since China is working closer to 7nm upcoming.

But while I agree it should be done in Russia, I dunno what overall plans are.

They may wait till they move more to 3d chip design.

kvs

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Post n°532

Re: Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors

kvs on Mon Nov 02, 2020 4:17 pm

miketheterrible wrote:Russia may switch to Chinese nodes since China is working closer to 7nm upcoming.

But while I agree it should be done in Russia, I dunno what overall plans are.

They may wait till they move more to 3d chip design.

China is safer than Taiwan as an offshore production point, but it is the same problem of having your jewelry in someone else's
pocket.

Even if Russia goes down the photonics pathway, there is a clear need for conventional silicon IC production inside Russia.
Aiming for short term transition to 14 nm would be ideal. The 7 nm target is more hype than substance. In fact, 7 nm
is too close to the 3 nm molecular cluster transition limit where continuum mechanics does not apply. So there is no
"material" to have predictable properties and which can be molded into functional components. There is talk of going to
5 nm but I think that will be entering the excessive error rate regime. It is already an achievement to be using 7 nm but
the end of the line is fast approaching.

Hence there is a need for photonics. Photonics will allow 3D in 2D hardware. Different frequencies of photon can be
use in the same "wires" but only one type of electrical current. So a chromatically selective photonic transistor (likely
some sort of complex not as simple as any of the current conventional IC transistors) would enable multiple IC layers
to coexist on a single plane. The different photon frequencies can be routed into different domains of a generic transistor
grid (sort of like FPGAs) to deploy the 3D aspect.

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Russian Electronics: Semiconductor and Processors