Application is king, Yuefang Technology reveals that the underlying logic of chip product definition reflects future planning

"After leaving Google and returning to China more than three years ago, I considered doing something difficult but right, and the first thing that came to my mind was 'serving the country with science and technology'," Dr. Jiang Zhaohui, founder, CEO and CTO of Yuefang Technology, explained the original intention of establishing Yuefang in a recent media interview. In fact, when she was still at Google, Jiang Zhaohui always paid attention to the development of China's high-tech industry. When she returned to China to start a business, she combined her observations of the industry with her ambitions and was determined to solve two major problems: First, China lacks CPU architecture and lacks independent and controllable core technologies in the industrial field related to the development of national strategy; second, the security issues of the industrial Internet of Things.

Figure 1. Dr. Jiang Zhaohui, founder, CEO and CTO of Yuefang Technology, analyzes the direction of chip innovation under the great changes in energy

It can be said that Yuefang's flagship SoC NB2 is a concrete example of this original intention and one of the phased results. On the one hand, it uses the RISC-V open source architecture to solve the problem of independent control. On the other hand, various high-performance performances also allow RISC-V-based chip products to gain a firm foothold in the high-end industrial field for the first time, truly realizing a one-stop layout from independent control to high-end positioning. "From the current RISC-V-based chip market, 12nm is already the highest process. NB2 directly adopts 12nm, which can be said to be the first case in the world," said Jiang Zhaohui.

Yuefang and the Electric Power Research Institute work together to implement the power edge intelligent terminal with a long-term layout of dual carbon

Taking the cooperation between Yuefang Technology and China Electric Power Research Institute (hereinafter referred to as "CEPRI") as an example, Jiang Chaohui said, "There are two reasons for choosing to enter the power grid industry. The first is global warming. I personally always care about the development of future generations. Therefore, I have been concerned about the dual carbon issue for more than 10 years; the second is independent control." At present, most of the chips needed for the power system rely on imports, especially the localization rate of power transmission, transformation and dispatching links is less than 5%, and the process of independent development is imminent.

It is reported that Jiang Chaohui had already started communicating with the Institute of Electrical Engineering as early as 2018, hoping to truly solve many common problems in the development of the power Internet of Things through RISC-V architecture chips, such as high computing power, low power consumption, and autonomous control. Through a series of communication and research, the two sides finally decided to use power edge smart chips as a breakthrough.

As we all know, artificial intelligence requires three major elements: data, algorithms and computing power, among which computing power is provided by chips. Based on Yuefang NB2, the Institute of Electrical Engineering chose the technical route of master control + AI accelerator, which not only meets the development requirements of independent control, but also has obvious advantages in process, temperature and computing power.

It is also on the basis of this close cooperation that the Institute of Electrical Engineering and Yuefang Company signed a strategic cooperation agreement, moved into the State Grid Corporation's Double Innovation Demonstration Center, jointly undertook national key R&D plans and State Grid Corporation's technical projects, and worked together to promote the formulation of specifications for edge smart chips in the power Internet of Things, collaborative R&D, and the implementation of results.

In addition, regarding information security, Yuefang Technology hopes to achieve data traceability and non-tamperability based on blockchain. Based on this, Yuefang Technology has cooperated with many blockchain companies, such as Molink Technology, and has made many innovations around data security. Jiang Chaohui mentioned, "This series of layouts were planned more than three years ago, and we worked together with our partners to grow all the way until today before announcing it to the industry."

In fact, the Artificial Intelligence Application Research Institute of China Electric Power Research Institute Co., Ltd., Liansheng Technology, an industry leader in intelligent operations in the new logistics industry, the Energy Internet Technology Research Institute of China Electric Power Research Institute, and Molink Technology, which focuses on trusted authentication and data privacy protection, were all invited to participate in the NB2 launch conference as customers or strategic partners of Yuefang Technology. They also synchronized with the industry the application progress and planning of NB2 in multiple fields such as smart energy, smart logistics, smart cities (buildings and industrial parks), and data security, and used actual cases to once again verify from the application side the empowerment of NB2 for smart industrial IoT scenarios such as dual carbon and digital new infrastructure.

By simultaneously developing the RISC-V software and hardware ecosystem, Yuefang helps customers quickly introduce applications

On the one hand, we designed a RISC-V SoC chip that is truly targeted at high-end industrial applications, and on the other hand, we quickly and maturely introduced the chip into multiple fields. This also reflects Yuefang Technology's accumulation of thinking on product design and support strategies.

According to Yuan Bohu, Vice President of R&D of Yuefang Technology, Yuefang's team has an important label, that is, the startup management and R&D team mostly come from chip subsidiaries or departments of system companies. Therefore, from the beginning, Yuefang considered the overall operation of the equipment system and how to solve application problems from the perspective of chips, focusing on "application is king" rather than just the design of a single chip.

Figure 2. Yuan Bohu, Vice President of R&D at Yuefang Technology, pointed out the underlying logic of chip product definition of "application is king"

At present, the RISC-V ecosystem is not perfect enough. If customers unilaterally import applications based on SoC chips, the workload will be heavy. Therefore, Yuefang launched the supporting core board and development board at the same time as the release of NB2 to ensure that customers can see a relatively stable minimum system, which is convenient for customers to directly develop applications.

At the same time, since RISC-V is a new architecture that is a rising star, but it is only a CPU or SoC. Without the support of operating system and software, it is like X86 without Windows, and it cannot be promoted and applied. Therefore, Yuefang Technology has set up a team of dozens of people to develop operating system and underlying software around RISC-V from the first day. This is not only what distinguishes Yuefang from other chip companies in the industry, but also the reason why it can work with partners to quickly and smoothly migrate applications from X86 and ARM architectures.

Figure 3. Yuefang Technology simultaneously deploys RISC-V software and hardware capabilities to help customers quickly introduce applications

Yuefang announces future product strategy with steady progress and solid application

With the release of NB2, the outside world is also paying close attention to Yuefang's next step. At the NB2 new product launch conference, Yuan Bohu also revealed "One more thing" - GF2, which is aimed at a variety of micro-edge applications such as smart boxes, energy controllers and charging piles. It is reported that GF2 has been verified on a self-designed stackable FPGA development platform and is expected to be officially tape-out in Q1 next year.

GF2 aims to improve the types and real-time performance of interfaces, so interfaces such as TSN and CAN-FD will be added to the chip design. "A large number of chips similar to GF2 are needed in industrial applications, but such chips have not yet been domestically produced," Jiang Zhaohui added.

Figure 4. Yuefang Technology announces the next generation product GF2 and product technology system

After the release of GF2, Yuefang hopes to meet the different applications of the system through the combined use of BF2, GF2, NB2 and other series of products located in the multi-layer network. Then, by making the supporting software and ecology solid and focusing on the completeness of system adaptability, we can consolidate the applications and explore more opportunities. When different applications are running, Yuefang Technology will consider where to focus on the next generation of chips based on market feedback. Yuan Bohu said, "We are ultimately responsible for the products. We don't make chips for the sake of making chips, but we turn chips into products and apply them well."

When talking about Yuefang's future, Jiang Chaohui said, "Yuefang's future vision is not based on the chip itself, but hopes to be among the top 50 Chinese chip companies in a few years. The chip industry is a strategic investment. We hope that the company can solve the country's practical problems on the basis of long-term development. To do this well, we have to be calm and persevere."