Alibaba's first CPU chip, Pingtou Ge, is released! 5nm Yitian 710, 128 cores, 60 billion transistors per chip, no one can compete with it

Li Gen and Yuyang Bowen sent from Yunqi Town
Quantum Bit Report | Public Account QbitAI

When Yitian comes out, who can compete with it?

5nm, 60 billion transistors per chip, 128 cores, main frequency 3.2GHz...the first running score exceeded the industry benchmark by 20%, and the energy efficiency ratio increased by more than 50%.

This is the latest chip-making achievement presented by Alibaba's Pingtouge Semiconductor at the 2021 Yunqi Conference .

Named Yitian 710 , a self-developed cloud chip, has set a new performance record for Arm server chips.

More importantly, this is also the first general-purpose chip since the establishment of Alibaba Pingtou Ge .

In the past three years since entering the chip manufacturing industry with the motto of "don't care about life and death, just do it if you don't agree", Pingtou Ge has launched the processor IP Xuantie 910 and AI reasoning dedicated chip Hanguang 800 , and put them into commercial use.

But the CPU, as the most core unit of the computer system, its difficulty and importance cannot be overemphasized.

When the dedicated chip Hanguang 800 was released, Zhang Jianfeng, CTO of Alibaba Group and President of DAMO Academy, humbly said: This is the first step of Pingtou Ge’s long march.

Now, with the launch of Yitian 710 and the successful acquisition of general-purpose chips, it undoubtedly marks that Pingtou Ge Semiconductor has reached a greater milestone - a difficult battle on the Long March has been overcome.

At the same time, it is also a landmark moment for Alibaba, which has begun its transformation from commercial Internet to hard technology .

Yitian 710, what kind of chip is it?

A general server chip (CPU) is responsible for receiving, processing, and calculating all information inside the server computer. It is recognized in the industry as one of the most difficult chips to design.

But when Flathead Brother took action, he chose the most challenging track.

Yitian 710 adopts the industry's most advanced 5nm process, and a single chip can accommodate up to 60 billion transistors . In terms of chip architecture, it is based on the latest Arm v9 architecture , contains a 128-core CPU , and the main frequency reaches up to 3.2GHz .

In terms of memory and interface , it also integrates the industry's most advanced DDR5 , PCIE5.0 and other technologies, which can effectively improve the chip's transmission rate and adapt to different cloud application scenarios.

On the industry-wide testing platform SPECInt2017 , the score reached 440 , exceeding the previous industry benchmark by 20% , reaching the peak in its first attempt.

And the performance behemoth also takes power consumption into consideration.

Compared with the industry benchmark, the energy efficiency ratio has been optimized by 50% . In data center applications, the significance of energy conservation and emission reduction is self-evident.

That’s right, data centers and cloud services will be the core commercial scenarios of Yitian 710 .

As a high-performance server chip, Yitian 710 is designed for the high concurrency, high performance and high energy efficiency requirements of cloud scenarios. It combines the most cutting-edge chip design technology with the unique requirements of cloud scenarios, and ultimately achieves a breakthrough in performance and energy efficiency.

For example, to solve the bandwidth bottleneck under high concurrency conditions of cloud computing , Yitian 710 has specially optimized the on-chip interconnection design, and effectively alleviated system congestion through a new flow control algorithm, thereby improving system efficiency and scalability.

This is also the key reason why no one can compete with the Arm server CPU once the Yitian 710 is released.

Zou Ting, global vice president of Arm Infrastructure Division, said:

As one of the leading public cloud providers, Alibaba has set a benchmark for other cloud service providers to follow.

For Arm, Pingtou Ge's research and development achievements in the server processor Yitian 710 chip are undoubtedly a major milestone. It also verifies the product roadmap of Arm IP in the infrastructure field and its performance-per-watt advantages.

We are happy for Pingtou Ge's technical team and look forward to further in-depth cooperation with Pingtou Ge and Alibaba in chip design, software application optimization and ecosystem incubation.

But even with such achievements, Zhang Jianfeng, President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence and Dean of DAMO Academy, emphasized more about Yitian 710: Customers come first .

He said that the launch of Yitian 710 is the result of Alibaba Cloud's business strategy of "one cloud, multiple cores" and "deepening the foundation", and the original intention was just to meet the diverse computing needs of customers.

Therefore, under this strategy, Yitian 710 is not sold to the public, but mainly used by Alibaba Cloud. Like its self-developed AI inference chip Hanguang 800 , it realizes value output in the form of cloud services.

Zhang Jianfeng also said that he will continue to maintain close cooperation with partners such as Intel, NVIDIA, AMD, Arm, etc. to provide customers with more choices.

How was the first CPU made?

Pingtou Ge did not "dare" to challenge Universal Chip right away.

Prior to Yitian 710, Pingtou Ge had delivered the RISC-V processor Xuantie 910 and the first dedicated chip Hanguang 800. It is no longer a "newcomer" in the field of chip design and tape-out.

But even so, this does not mean that the technological gap from dedicated chips to general-purpose chips can be easily crossed.

If a dedicated chip is likened to a human neuron responsible for a certain ability, then a general-purpose chip is like the brain.

The complexity is evident.

Therefore, even though the semiconductor industry has a long history, there are only a handful of semiconductor companies worldwide that have the ability to build CPUs.

What is clear is that the CPU is one of the chips with the highest design threshold in the semiconductor industry.

Specifically in the field of data center , its CPU is also recognized as one of the most complex chips in the industry, with complex architecture design and extremely high requirements for performance and power consumption...

Before Pingtou Ge delivered the goods, only companies such as Intel, AMD, AWS, and Huawei in the world had such technical capabilities.

If we take into account the process, packaging, performance and power consumption, there are even fewer capable people.

Pingtou Ge not only did it, but also aimed at top-level performance, squeezed out the toothpaste, and brought server chips into the 5nm era.

The chip process can be better understood by using its other name, "integrated circuit".

A chip is a complex circuit composed of a large number of transistors, in which the gate of the transistor is the narrowest line. The width of this line represents the size of the process.

The smaller the process, the more transistors can be accommodated per unit area, and the stronger the chip performance will be, but the lower this value is, the higher the technical requirements will be.

Before this, the most advanced process for server chips was still 7nm. If the Yitian 710 had been designed with 7nm in mind, it might have been safer.

But if we want to challenge 5nm, we need to do more pioneering work in aspects such as energy density and internal chip structure layout.

It is said that during the research and development process, the Pingtou Ge team used more than 30 types of EDA software scheduling, customized clock networks and customized IP technologies, and adopted advanced multi-chip stacking technology to ensure the optimization of chip performance and power consumption.

Why does it have to be 5nm?

The answer is: no choice.

Pingtou Ge explained that the high cost of space in terminal equipment makes it easier for the outside world to understand the importance of process technology to CPU.

But what is easily overlooked is that high-performance CPUs used in servers also have extremely high requirements for process technology.

As the demand for computing power grows by leaps and bounds, the performance requirements for server CPUs are also rising.

If Pingtou Ge chooses 7nm, or even returns to 10nm, it will not only lead to an increase in area, but also make it difficult to put more cores...

On the other hand, the more advanced the process, the smaller the chip, and the greater the operating cost savings.

In the data center field, there is a special and important dimension for evaluating chips called TCO, or total cost of ownership. Therefore, data center chips are extremely sensitive to power consumption. More advanced processes will save more electricity costs during 7×24 hours operation.

Therefore, during the R&D process, the "potential customer" Alibaba Cloud clearly put forward higher requirements in terms of performance, process technology and power consumption:

If it's not better than the existing solution, there's no need to upgrade.

If it is not better than the existing solution, there is no persuasiveness for upgrading.

From this perspective, it is not difficult to understand what the Pingtou Ge team revealed: "Only the best can survive."

This is not only a proof of its own product capabilities, but also the essence of Pingtou Ge's commercialization and sustainable operation.

Unlike most chip companies, Pingtou Ge’s model is not to sell chips directly to the outside world, but to provide cloud services and export them through Alibaba Cloud. Its largest customer is Alibaba Cloud.

But it is also for this reason that Yitian 710 reached its peak in its first battle, which is somewhat a sign of institutional advantage .

Because it is backed by Alibaba Cloud, one of the top three cloud platforms in the world, Pingtou Ge's cloud chips can understand the business scenarios and needs of data centers more deeply than independent suppliers from the beginning of their definition and design.

It can be said that this is a truly demand-oriented chip design model, and the ultimate goal is Chip as a Service .

This also explains why both the AI ​​inference chip Hanguang 800 and the server CPU Yitian 710 can achieve such remarkable performance improvements.

However, it is worth noting that Alibaba Pingtouge’s chip advancement is not just a breakthrough in performance .

At the Yunqi Conference, another soft progress in the direction of ecological construction was also likely to have far-reaching impact:

Pingtou Ge officially announced that it will open source the Hematite RISC-V series processors and related tools and system software.

This is also an important move by Pingtou Ge in the RISC-V ecosystem after the release of processor IPs such as Xuantie 910, and it has become the world's first full-stack open source case for a series of processors and basic software.

When Hematite 910 was launched, we introduced that “every era has its own chip” .

Due to its open and flexible features, the RISC-V architecture is expected to become the next generation of widely used CPU architecture after Intel x86 and Arm.

However, the challenges currently faced by the RISC-V architecture are also very direct: application fragmentation, low development efficiency, difficulty in software and hardware adaptation, etc.

To sum up, the software and hardware ecosystem needs to be improved.

The open source of Xuantie can be said to be a steady, accurate and ruthless attack that meets the urgent needs of the development of the RISC-V ecosystem.

In the AIoT field, Pingtou Ge's self-developed Hematite RISC-V series processors cover various scenarios from low power consumption to high performance, support AliOS, FreeRTOS, RT-Thread, Linux, Android and other operating systems, and have been successfully applied to microcontrollers, industrial control, smart home appliances, smart grids, image processing, artificial intelligence, multimedia and automotive electronics.

Currently, shipments have exceeded 2.5 billion units, with over 150 customers and over 500 licenses, making it the domestically produced CPU with the largest application scale in China.

Therefore, the purpose of open source and ecological expansion at this time is clear.

And for observing the flat-headed brother, this is also a clear sign of the wind direction:

The ambition and value of this semiconductor company, founded in 2018, will not be limited to the chip itself.

After Yitian 710, let’s take a look at Pingtou Ge?

Time goes back to three years ago, and it is still the Yunqi Conference.

That year, Alibaba officially announced the biggest upgrade in chip manufacturing investment, establishing Pingtouge Semiconductor .

The outside world is paying attention to and hotly discussing the Pingtou Brother spirit of "not caring about life and death, and just fight if you don't agree", but there are doubts about Alibaba's future path of high-profile chip manufacturing.

It was a decision that had been in the works for a long time.

Since 2016, Alibaba has invested in the software-defined network (SDN) chip company Barefoot, and has since expanded its coverage to areas such as AI chips and IoT chips, bringing Aojie Technology, Cambricon, Horizon Robotics, Kneron, C-SKY Microelectronics, and Hengxuan Technology under its umbrella.

At the same time, a technical team composed of top experts from the semiconductor industry and academia was formed in the DAMO Academy. The research directions comprehensively cover core chip design technologies such as system architecture, computing technology, storage technology, and chip engineering. After the establishment of Pingtou Ge, it took the lead in achieving results in the field of AI dedicated chips.

However, Pingtou Ge’s advancement is still considered an overly bold cross-border attempt.

Even globally, no company has been able to make the leap from dedicated chips to general-purpose chips in just a few years.

Therefore, the delivery of Yitian 710 is not only a proof that Pingtou Ge has the ability to design complex large chips, but also a landmark battle for Alibaba's chip manufacturing.

If the launch of the AI-specific chip Hanguang 800 is regarded as the first step in a long march.

The general-purpose chip Yitian 710 shows that Alibaba's long march to build chips has completed a key battle.

Now, the achievements and chip capabilities delivered by Pingtou Ge have proven that it is enough to rank among the top semiconductor companies.

Secondly, this is also a historic moment for the 22-year-old Alibaba.

Within Alibaba, the establishment of Alibaba Cloud and the launch of the FeiTian operating system in 2009 are seen as the beginning of exploring cutting-edge technologies.

However, over the past 10 years, Alibaba's success has been considered more of a commercial and operational success rather than a success in technological strength.

It was not until the launch of DAMO Academy in 2017 that the exploration of cutting-edge technology fields including AI, quantum computing, autonomous driving, chips and 5G was clarified, and people began to feel the strong determination of business giants to turn to hard technology.

Pingtou Ge Semiconductor is the epitome of such transformation efforts.

In the most hardcore and basic chip semiconductor field, from the release of the RISC-V Xuantie processor to the release of the AI ​​chip Hanguang 800 and the general server chip Yitian 710, Pingtou Ge completed a "triple jump" in three years.

This kind of leap is not easy, but it is precisely this difficulty that proves the necessity and correctness of the direction of progress .

Fortunately, Ali once again spoke with results and turned belief into seeing.

Therefore, the delivery of Yitian 710 is also a landmark moment for Alibaba's hard technology to reach a new level and transform from a commercial company to a hard technology company.

Of course, this is not even limited to Alibaba itself.

In the past few years of ups and downs, the objective reality that China faced in the chip field has shocked and educated everyone.

What is China's largest export?

There is controversy over the category.

But what is China's largest import?

There is one and only one answer: chip semiconductors.

Although in the field of chip design, different forces are working hard to make up for the shortcomings.

However, the high-performance CPU market has made limited progress and is always in a backward state awaiting supply.

Now, with the release of the 5nm Yitian 710, the situation has been fundamentally reversed. In the field of high-performance server chips, a new benchmark and lighthouse is rising in the east.

This may also be the reason why the Alibaba Pingtou Ge team named this chip Yitian .

What’s interesting is that since the delivery of the products, the Pingtou Ge team has chosen the “magic swords” from ancient China and martial arts as the nicknames for each product.

Black Iron is a processor IP that is "a heavy sword without a blade, great ingenuity without effort".

Hanguang is an AI-specific chip that is “invisible and powerful in everything”.

And Yitian...the first CPU chip.

Who can compete with Yitian when he appears? !