Workers operate in the wafer division of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp in Shanghai, one of the largest chip foundries in the world. (Photo : Getty Images)
A 64-core central processing unit (CPU), and a related prototype computer server made by Chinese integrated circuit (IC) design firm Phytium Technology Co. Ltd., was unveiled at a technology event in Silicon Valley, the Global Times reported.
The Tianjin-based company claimed that its FT-2000/64 CPU is the first of its kind in adopting the Advanced RISC Machine (ARM) architecture. It has 4.8 billion transistors on a die that measures 25.38 millimeters in width and 25.38 millimeters in length within a chip package that is 55 millimeters in width and 55 millimeters in length, the report said.
The RISC (which stands for reduced instruction set computer) ARM architecture uses processors, as the core of computers, and uses less number of transistors and therefore it is cheaper and has reduced heat and power use.
The product was introduced at Hot Chips, an annual symposium on high performance computer chips jointly sponsored by the U.S. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), in Cupertino, California, that started Sunday, Aug. 21, until Tuesday, Aug. 23.
Phytium engineers said that the new CPU chip has a 64-bit arithmetic, which is compatible with ARMv8 instructions. It can also perform 512 billion floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) at base frequency of 2.0 GHz and on 100 watts of power dissipation.
Phytium said that they have designed their own cores known as FTC661s, which are the units that read and execute program instructions, such as add, move data and branch. They integrated it into the chip, to allow it to run multiple instructions at the same time in what is called parallel computing.
The company, however, said that the architecture is licensed from ARM Holdings, a British company.
The previous CPU series made by Phytium, one of major CPU developers in China, integrate either 4 or 16 cores, the report said.
The company said that the FT-2000/64 is the best in the ARM category so far, as it avoided to compare its products with other complex instruction set computing (CISC) x86 processors, such as those made by Intel Corporation, one of the world's largest chip makers.
A Phytium sales representative said that the company has supplied thousands of CPUs to system builders that provide equipment for government institutions, banks, telecommunication businesses, and public utilities in China, adding that its latest chip will be used in high-performance servers.
