Godson

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This article is about a computer processor chip. For a male godchild, see godparent.

The Godson series, or "Dragon chip" for its origin, or Loongson[1] is an architecture of general CPUs developed at CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences). The chief architect is Professor Weiwu Hu of ICT (Institute of Computing Technology). Type I (introduced in 2002) runs at 266 MHz, Type II is 64 bit and runs at 500 MHz (reportedly comparable in performance to the Pentium III). The Godson III is being targeted at 1 GHz, with multiple (8 to 16) cores. The instruction set is MIPS compatible, but the creators have backed away from promoting the chip as such due to threats of a lawsuit (see a Lexra history).

In September 2006, Li Guojie, director of the Institute of Computer Technology under the CAS announced a Longxin IIE (Godson IIE) a 64-bit chip containing 47m transistors and reaching 1GHz.

BLX IC Design Corporation, Ltd (BLX) (Beijing Longxin ?) was founded at 2002 by Institute of Computing Technology, China Academy of Sciences and Jiangsu Zhongyi Group. Based in Beijing, BLX focuses on designing advanced 32bit/64bit Godson general and embedded processor, developing software tools and reference platforms.

In March 2006 a €100 Godson II computer design called Longmeng (Dragon Dream) was announced.

In June 2006 at Computex'2006, Taipei YellowSheepRiver company has announced a Municator YSR-639, a mini-computer based on the 400MHz Godson 2.

[edit] Godson 2E

In the second half of the third quarter of 2006, China revealed the latest addition to the Godson series, the Godson 2E, which was already in early stage of manufacturing, and mass production was scheduled at the end of the year. According to developers, official tests showed that the Chinese chip can rival Intel Pentium 4 processor in performance and it was superior to the early series of the Pentium IV CPUs, but the Chinese CPU could be produced at a much lower cost.

Unlike processors from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices or Via Technologies, the Godson-2E is not based on the x86 instruction set. Instead, the chip uses a modified version of the MIPS instruction set that replaces proprietary instructions with ones developed by ICT. This means the Godson 2E cannot be used in PCs running Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, and thus the computing devices based on the Godson 2E would be most likely running the Linux operating system.

The processor runs at clock speed of 1 GHz and like other chips in the Godson family, the Godson 2E was designed by the Chinese Academy of Science's Institute of Computing Technology (ICT) and was the first Chinese CPU produced using 90-nanometer process technology. Earlier versions of the Godson 2 chip were produced using a 180-nanometer process and ran at clock speeds up to 500MHz. Godson 2E CPU contains 47 million transistors, more than the 40 million of the Pentium IV. But this processing power will not be a drain on laptop batteries, as power consumption is between 3 to 8 watts, according to CAS Fellow Li Guojie (李国杰), director of the institute. Li Guojie also announced that at the end of 2006, scientists would start to upgrade Godson 2E to Godson 2F, which will improve performance by about 30% and power consumption reduced by about 50%. By 2008, Godson-3 is scheduled to enter production.

On November 13, 2006, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), Li Guojie announced to the public that "Godson 2E is ready for mass production. Li Guojie told the public that from Godson 1 to Godson 2B, the capability of the chip has tripled, and from Godson 2B to Godson 2C, from Godson 2C to Godson 2E, the capability has continuously tripled. On the average, the capability of Godson series chip doubles every year, four times of what Moore's law claims, and China should accumulate small successes into large success." Currently, the Loongson box is sold in China at CNY1599 (~US$200) without monitor, mouse, and keyboard.