Hardware Talk :: Loongson Godson. Just half a dream.



I only heard about this chinese chip called the 'Godson' today.
Apparently China has been developing it's own cpu. Because of
the architecture, it won't run windows and so is probably targeted
for linux with chinese support - but don't get excited yet.

The most info I got was from the wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godson
which points to a pic here:
http://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2006-11-20/00141245061.shtml

Current ranges are from 500mhz to 800mhz (Godson II) with the
Godson III rumoured to reach 1GHz. Similar to AMD and VIA, the
performances have been compared to the Intel range at higher
clock rates but at cheaper prices.

I couldn't very much find out any more, but what did catch my eye
was the power rating : 3W(600Mhz) 5W(800Mhz), hey! now you're
talking!, this puts it in the territory of the VIA fanless series.

The downside ofcourse is that wouldn't run DSL (poof - dream dies
here) since it's not i386. Debian is known to run on other
architectures such as PowerPC, but think of the manpower behind
that, the kernel, the re-compiling, the drivers. Just goes to show
how dependent we are on the i386 - eh?
Quote (humpty @ Mar. 06 2007,08:56)
The downside ofcourse is that wouldn't run DSL (poof - dream dies
here) since it's not i386. Debian is known to run on other
architectures such as PowerPC, but think of the manpower behind
that, the kernel, the re-compiling, the drivers. Just goes to show
how dependent we are on the i386 - eh?

From your wiki link:
Quote
...[T]he chip uses a modified version of the MIPS instruction set that replaces proprietary instructions with ones developed by ICT.


It's MIPS-compliant, Debian already has a MIPS port.
http://www.debian.org/ports/mips/

I don't think we're dependent, per se, it's just that our technical culture favors standards-compliance and the de facto standard for PC (and now even Mac) architecture is x86. That's a good thing because it reduces the amount of work it would take to make systems work -- either by themselves or networked together -- otherwise. Any new chip based on a different instruction set than x86 is going to have to comply with another known standard if its manufacturers want global adoption of it. Evolution, not revolution.

original here.