Loongson is a major player in China, creating domestic chips for 22 years with the aim of providing affordable alternatives to Intel and AMD products. Historically, however, there has always been a notable performance gap between its local processors and those from outside China.
NOW, Fast technology reports that Loongson has been working hard behind the scenes to close this gap and is preparing to launch a trio of fourth-generation processors, collectively known as the “Three Musketeers.”
Loongson’s first-generation chips included the 3A1000 and 3B1500, followed by the second-generation 3A2000 and 3A3000, and then the third-generation 3A4000, 3A5000, and 3C5000/S/D. The fourth generation chips are the Loongson 3A6000, 3B6000M and 3C6000.
Tock-Tock2-Tick
“Loongson follows a development principle based on independent research of core intellectual property to improve the general-purpose performance of a single core. It adopts a strategy similar to Intel’s old “Tick-Tock” development approach, where “Tick” refers to process iteration and “Tock” refers to architecture and design optimization. Fast technologys report added.
For this new generation, Loongson has adopted a “Tock-Tock2-Tick” approach, i.e. “two cycles of design optimization before a process iteration”, aimed at maximizing the performance of existing mature processes, which are roughly comparable to the international level of 7nm. .
The Loongson 3A6000 is already available, but very little is currently known about the 3B6000M other than that it will feature graphics and GPGPU computing cores. The 3C6000 server processor has reportedly returned for sample testing and is expected to ship in Q4 2024. What’s particularly interesting is that Loongson developed upgraded versions of the Three Musketeers – the 3A6600, 3B6600 and 3C6600 – as part of the second “Tock”. »
The 3B6600, scheduled for release in the first half of next year, would also integrate GPGPU graphics and computing cores, like the 3B6000M.
Loongson’s fourth-generation processors will integrate high-speed PCIe interfaces, “enabling connections to dedicated graphics cards, network cards, RAID cards, etc., with a low south bridge connected via PCIe.” Fast technology added.