The basic introduction and characteristics of the four major architectures
1, X86 is mainly used in the PC side of the CPU, invented in 1978, is currently operated by Intel, and is mainly used in the Inter, AMD's CPU, which is characterized by high performance, fast speed, and good compatibility.
2, ARM architecture is a 32-bit instruction set, invented in 1983 by the British company Acorn, which is characterized by low cost and low power consumption, and is widely used by customers such as Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Qualcomm, and so on, in mobile communications and embedded systems.
3. The RISC-V architecture is an open-source instruction set that started relatively late and was invented by the RISC-V Foundation in 2014. It is characterized by modularity, simplicity, scalability, and can design the right instruction set according to the scenario. Users include Samsung, NVIDIA, Western Digital, etc., and are used in the CPU of industrial control, electrical appliances, servers, sensors, and other products.
4. MIPS architecture is a streamlined instruction set, invented by the MIPS company in 1971, and is characterized by simplicity, ease of optimization, and high scalability, and the main representative of the product The main representative product is Longchip.
ARM architecture in the chip market accounted for 95% of the share, has formed a complete ecological chain
ARM has a 95% share of the mobile chip market, through the authorization to earn royalties, last year's revenue reached 1.6 billion U.S. dollars. The use of ARM architecture must be authorized to be able to, the current global design of the chip is according to the ARM company's program, the development of software is also in accordance with this program to design, so a variety of cell phones will not have compatibility issues, after years of accumulation, has formed a complete set of architecture system.
In addition to the ARM architecture, the RISC-V architecture still under development is expected to be able to launch a challenge, but there is a great deal of difficulty
In addition to the ARM architecture, the RISC-V architecture is still under development is expected to start the competition. Because of the rising ARM license fees, the Indian government has been vigorously assisting in the development of RISC-V, and China has also included it in its research in Shanghai, with more than 160 companies, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, joining in the research. This open-source instruction set has received a lot of attention, which has put a lot of pressure on ARM. ARM is a closed instruction set, which can't be changed at will, and the architecture is not flexible enough, while open-source RISC-V designers can customize it freely and change the instruction set according to different needs. the RISC-V architecture is a latecomer, which is still in the development stage and not in formal operation, and it can't build up a perfect The RISC-V architecture is a latecomer, still in the development stage and not officially in use, unable to establish a perfect ecosystem and lacking the support of large companies, there is still a long way to go before it can compete with ARM.
At present, the commonly used processor architectures are ARM, x86, MIPS, RISC-V, etc., which are divided into CISC and RISC according to the instruction set. Different architectures have different applications, which are described below.
1, x86 architecture
Most of the computers we use and the company's servers, most of the processors used in the x86 architecture, with intel and AMD processors as the main ones.
The x86 processor uses the CISC instruction set (Complex Instruction Set Computer), and the x86 CPU is divided into two categories: x86 and x86-64, with x86-64, a 64-bit processor, currently in the mainstream.
2, ARM architecture
Almost all of our cell phones use ARM architecture, using the RISC instruction set (Reduced Instruction Set), ARM's advantage lies in the low-power, so it is very suitable for cell phones and other terminals, x86 architecture processors can not solve the problem of low-power, so mobile terminals are rarely used in the processor of x86 architecture.
Huawei Kirin processors, Apple's A-series processors, and Qualcomm Snapdragon processors invariably use the ARM architecture, in addition to most of the industrial control systems, control systems for smart homes, and set-top boxes in homes also use the ARM architecture.
With the impact of the U.S. "sales ban", ARM interrupted the business dealings with Huawei, ARM, the company came into the people's field of vision, ARM was founded in 1991, is a British company, and was later acquired by Japan's SoftBank. and manufacture its own chips, located at the top of the ARM architecture. If ARM no longer licenses Huawei, then Huawei's Kirin processors, Lynx processors, etc. will all be affected to some extent and will not be able to use the latest architecture.
3, MIPS architecture
MIPS architecture is also a RISC (Reduced Instruction Set) processor architecture, developed and licensed by MIPS Technologies in 1981, widely used in electronics, networking equipment, personal entertainment devices. For example, if a wireless router used in a home is an MTK chip, then most of them are MIPS processors.
Here we talk about China's independent "Longxin" processor, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Computing purchased the permanent structure of the MIPS authorization, compatible with the MIPS architecture of the processor, that is, you can paste "compatible with the MIPS instruction set" trademark, all the core architecture is developed on their own, and all the core architecture is developed on their own. All core architectures are self-developed.
4, RISC-V architecture
RISC-V architecture is based on the Reduced Instruction Set (RISC) open-source architecture, can be freely used for any purpose, allowing any tolerance for people to design, manufacture, and sell RISC-V chips and software, and do not need to be ARM, MIPS, as the need to go through the authorization of a variety of limitations on the use.
Compared with the x86 and ARM architectures, RISC-V is relatively "young," having been born in 2010 and released by the University of California, Berkeley.
The RISC-V architecture can be said to be the ultimate solution to the dilemma of domestic civilian processors. From a long-term perspective, processors based on a variety of x86, arm and other architectures belong to the "false autonomy", and are still subject to the limitations of intel, arm and other authorizations, such as the recent "ban on sales" due to the impact of arm interruptions and Huawei's business dealings to stop the relevant authorization services, in the long run. The company's newest product, the Kirin processor, will be a big hit in the long run, as it stops providing authorization for its services.
At present, many domestic manufacturers are involved in the RISC-V ecosystem, the establishment of the RISC-V industry alliance, including the original microelectronics, Ziguang Zhanrui, Anhui Huami, etc. Last year, Xiaomi released a wearable chip based on the RISC-V instruction set Huangshan 1. RISC-V is the biggest threat to the ARM architecture, and the prospect of the good, but after all, it is still in the beginning stage, with the iteration of the technology, I believe it will be the most important thing. iteration, I believe that will certainly promote RISC-V to establish a strong ecosystem.
These are the common CPU architectures today. x86 is the mainstream for PCs and servers, ARM is the mainstream for mobile devices, and RISC-V may be the mainstream in the future.
Each architecture has a great advantage in its own industry, ARM is mainly in the mobile terminal, the biggest is the cell phone industry.
Now the world's chip architecture technology is better than four, but also the mainstream architecture technology, respectively, X86, ARM, RiSC-V and MIPS, and the cell phone industry is the main ARM companies.
ARM
The ARM architecture is a 32-bit lite instruction set processor architecture that is widely used in many embedded system designs. It is primarily engaged in the development of low-cost, low-power, high-performance chips, so ARM processors are very well suited for mobile communications, so 99% of the world's smartphones and tablets use the ARM architecture. the ARM family accounts for 75% of all 32-bit embedded processors, making it one of the 32-bit architectures that account for the largest number of 32-bit architectures in the world. ARM is primarily geared towards the mobile, low-power sector, so the design is more energy-efficient. Therefore, it is designed to be more energy-efficient and energy-saving.
The ARM architecture is used in smartphones, smart TVs, wearables, mobile base stations, enterprise servers, medical devices, smart driving, and the Internet of Things, among other technologies. From the operating system to the upper layer of application software are developed based on the ARM architecture, so it basically forms a complete industrial chain in mobile devices. Many CPUs are now based on the ARM Cortex A5, A8, A9, and A15 microarchitectures.
In the field of cell phone chip design, take Huawei for example. Huawei's chip design usually starts with the ARM chip design framework and then proceeds with the design, which is completed and then eventually handed over to TSMC for OEM, which is a complete design process for the core product. This is the complete design process of a chip. Just like building a house, there is a basic framework first, and then there are designers to design and manufacture. And it's not just Huawei, for example, Apple, Samsung, Intel are all based on ARM architecture.
X85
X86 is mainly for the computer industry. It is a computer language instruction set executed by a microprocessor, referring to the standard numbering acronym for an intel general-purpose computer family, which also identifies a common set of computer instructions collection. on June 8, 1978, the x86 architecture was born. Its CPUs are basically 1G+, dual-core and quad-core, and are usually manufactured using 45nm or higher process technology. x86 architecture computers use "bridges" to connect to expansion devices, making it easier to expand the performance of the computer.
It has essentially monopolized the PC operating system industry for nearly three decades, and has a large number of users. It has mature user applications, software packages, software development tools for support and compatibility, and many third-party software and software programming tools to help users get going.
RISC-V
The RiSC-V architecture is an open instruction set architecture based on the principles of Thin Instruction Set Computing (TISC), which is based on the continuous development and maturity of the instruction set. This instruction set will not be monopolized or monetized, it is architecturally simple, completely open source, and allows anyone to design, manufacture, and sell RISC-V chips and software. It can be used as needed to design a number of processors based on it, such as server CPUs, home appliance cpu's, industrial control cpu's, and CPU's that are always in sensors.
MIPS
The MIPS architecture is a processor architecture that takes a condensed set of instructions, and was developed in 1981. It can be considered a small offshoot of RISC, but is different from RISC; after all, RISC is open source, and MIPS builds on it in a better and more successful way.
MIPS-based MCUs are used in many industries, including industrial, office automation, automotive, consumer electronics, and advanced technologies.
On August 16, 2007, MIPS Technologies announced that the Longxin CPU from the Institute of Computer Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences had been granted a license to all of its processor IP patents and buses and instruction sets.
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Truly said that the CPU architecture and micro-instruction set is not very difficult, but difficult to get out of the corresponding development of tool-based software, or else useless, no domestic companies have developed such tool-based software, said we do not like to listen to the words, if the foreign comprehensive blockade of the tool-based software, not to mention the IC industry, even if it is machining, can not live, all the drawings are used to design the software All the drawing design software is used abroad, there is not a company in the country to engage in, all take others.
The question also forgets the alpha (the top processor legacy left by DEC, which has been ancient for many years, and was far superior to x86), the Chinese Shenwei processor.
With 16 cores for desktops and servers, and 260 cores ((64+1)*4) for supercomputing, the architecture is not only powerful in numerical computation (TaihuLight), but also has unrivaled low power consumption per unit of computing power.
IBM's PP and MIPS both have strong advantages for embedded applications, and cellular AP is a typical embedded application.