Testing a Chinese x86 CPU: A Deep Dive into Zen-based Hygon Dhyana Processors

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• s.yu - Tuesday, March 3, 2020 - link

  It says 2.40 ounces, that's the shipping weight but for something seemingly the size of a thumbnail I don't think it needs to be 2.4 ounces, not even with packaging.
  
  This 6 count battery bundle seems to have a shipping weight of 0.8 ounce.
  https://www.amazon.com/Energizer-2032-BP-6-6-pack/...

• Shadow7037932 - Sunday, March 8, 2020 - link

  If you look at the datasheet, this CPLD doesn't need RAM backup. It's using Non volatile flash to store the config.

• Shadow7037932 - Sunday, March 8, 2020 - link

  People in Asia/S.E. Area are using devices with HiSilicon Kirin SoCs, so I doubt they'll have issues exporting it.

• Soppro - Sunday, March 1, 2020 - link

  This is very possible. China has done this in a variety of other areas such as high speed rail, mass transit and aircraft design/manufacturing, letting foreign companies to bid to gain access to the Chinese market and taking their proprietary technology in the process (foreign companies must partner with a Chinese counterpart). Case in point, Chinese HSR train sets have now improved to the point that they supersede the Japanese designs they were originally based on.

• khanikun - Monday, March 2, 2020 - link

  That's how many countries do things. S.Korea's high speed trains originated from the French. Russia's high speed trains originated from the Germans. China's high speed trains originated from the Japanese, French, and Germans. You build upon what you learned and if they didn't want to make a new rival, they shouldn't have trained them on how to build high speed trains, just so they could try to gain a new market share.
  
  I say just sell at a high price, to make up for these future losses, if you want to sell to China or ignore the market. Course that could also just wind up with the Chinese trying to steal your tech via hacking or whatever else.

• evernessince - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link

  Licensed, not sold.

• SSNSeawolf - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link

  This is the most excited I've ever gotten about someone violating import restrictions. There's a lot of strange stuff to parse through here.
  
  1.) I'd be interested to see where the second battery's traces lead; that should help solve the mystery.
  2.) I'd like to see Linux booted up and have a look at lscpu. That will probably be more helpful than CPU-Z for these chips.
  3.) The Intel cooler thing is just bizarre. The cooler IP must not have been licensed, which is also an interesting nugget.
  4.) I'd be very interested in having someone take a hard look at the chipset FPGA.
  5.) Tangential, but I wonder if the BMC has been modified in any way.

• Kevin G - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link

  The Intel cooler is indeed odd but it isn't unique. There is an AM4 with Intel LGA115x mounts: the Asrock X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 is one such board.
  
  I'll second the need to dig into the FGPA. If there is any major truth to what the tin-foil hatters are saying, that is the prime location to put a backdoor since that is reprogrammable. Outside of that, it does appear the consumer board has a SD card slot and a USB 3.0 header silk screened. I wonder if they were soldered on if they'd be active in any sort of capacity or if they're disabled out of necessity by not having enough resources on the FPGA.
  
  I'll second that BMC differences would just be interesting.

• Slash3 - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link

  I'm a bit surprised that the cooler mount even elicited as much as a raised eyebrow from Ian, as it's definitely been done before to utilize the smaller dimensions. Some things really are as obvious as they seem, and nothing more.

• myself248 - Wednesday, March 18, 2020 - link

  Is that a microSD slot? I was thinking it might be a SIM slot. Either way, super interesting, and I would love to see that FPGA bitstream analyzed. There are folks who can make some sense of such things, I am not one of them.