China pursuing CPU import substitution

Author: EIS Release Date: Feb 24, 2020

China’s latest domestic chip boosting initiative – called 352 Project – intends to develop a PC CPU which will replace 30% of the CPUs used inside China-based PCs within a year.

 

In 2016 AMD set up a China jv  called Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co. Ltd. (THATIC) and licensed x86 technology to it.

 

In 2018,, Chinese chip producer Chengdu Haiguang IC Design Co. (Hygon) took out a licence from AMD for EPYC server  processors.

 

Hygon uses the licence to make x86 compatible server processors for domestic use only.

 

 

In 2019, AND said it would nit license any more designs to THATIC which means that the jv has nothing more advanced than  the Zen architecture used in first-gen Ryzen and EPYC Naples processors, and  will not license  designs based the Zen 2 microarchitecture used in third-gen Ryzen and EPYC Rome processors.