Culturecom (China) Takes on Wintel with V-Dragon Chip

Reuters ^ | Fri January 30, 2004 | Doug Young

[Golden Eagle]

Culturecom Takes on Wintel with V-Dragon

By Doug Young

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Watch out, Wintel -- a new "Draglin" is coming to China.

Hong Kong's Culturecom Holdings Ltd. has combined its Chinese-friendly V-Dragon central processing unit (CPU) with the open-source Linux operating system.

The plan is to take on the dominant "Wintel" combination of PCs that run on Microsoft Corp's Windows software using Intel Corp CPUs.

In its drive to take on Wintel, Culturecom has found powerful allies in IBM Corp, which is making and supporting the new chips, and the Chinese government, which is promoting Linux...

[Golden Eagle]

So now IBM is not only helping China ditch American operating system software and replace it with foreign freeware, they are now helping the Chinese build their own custom computer chips that further threaten America's technological advantage in hardware. Those of you that support IBM need to wake up and realize that there are no longer a majority of Americans working for that company, something IBM proudly boasts to the press whenever these type issues are raised.

[Golden Eagle]

ping

[Aggie Diller]

G-5 double hitter! Screw all the rest and feed them fishheads and spam!

[HAL9000]

From Intel.com -

"Intel in the People's Republic of China takes an active role in the development and evolution of the country's computing. Intel China contains sales and marketing operations, design centers, technology labs and state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen. In addition, Intel is constructing a new facility in ChengDu dedicated to assembly, testing and packaging of microprocessors. Intel is committed to China and the growth of its computer industry, and works with academia, industry and the government to enable Intel® architecture-based technology in the country."

If you want an American-made CPU, get a computer that uses IBM's G5 processor. It is manufactured in New York.

[Thisiswhoweare]

Hey - like most of the other technology they are coming out with - they stole it square and fair.

[GOP_1900AD]

I would be quite interested to know the exact intellectual capital history of this CPU. For example, were any of its designers affiliated with the spies who were popped by Kevin Ryan et al at SFO, with Transmeta and Sun IP in their hands, on their way to the PRC? Likewise, did the Russian "firm" Elbrus Computer (nee "Soviet Military Nuclear Rocket Forces Supercomputer Bureau") see any of its ideas and design rules implemented in the chip and was there any overt help given by them? Just askin'......

[ikka]

From the article: "Chips sell for US$15 to US$30 each on average, or well below the cost of a comparable Intel chip with Windows software."

Thing is, that you can buy a quite fast chip like the AMD Athlon 1600 XP for about $60 retail. So it is not really a big price difference, and chances are that the chip is focused on things like DVD players, Tivo like boxes, etc.

[Golden Eagle]

I believe (off the top of my head) it is based on the Cyrix chip, previously a clone of the x86 family but I'm not sure about it's current capability. I actually have an Acer computer, that has an IBM motherboard with a Cyrix "P-166+" that came preloaded with Windows 95 and actually was a very speedy machine in it's day.

How exactly the chip technology has now fallen into the hands of the Chinese I'm not sure, but IBM seems to be playing a major part in it. Not surprising since in today's USA Today IBM had a full page add requesting Americans flock to Linux because "China and Munich have seen the light" or some such nonsense. Makes about as much sense and trotting out draft dodging boxer M. Ali to make their pitch during the Super Bowl, thankfully USA Today ranked the spot in the bottom 10 out of about 70 ads I believe it was.

[DarkWaters]

BM,

Here is a little something but not much:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10724

CHINESE FIRM, Culturecom Holdings Ltd says it has begun selling its V-Dragon chip, claiming 100,000 orders thus far.
The chip is designed to run a local implemetation of Linux - known as Midori** - and goes large on Chinese language support according to the company website.

The company also says it had help from IBM in building its chip and is now teaming up with Transmeta to develop the Midori Linux.

The Chinese are keen to develop their own chip and operating systems to avoid reliance on US technology, which could have security implications for the People's Republic. Intel will feel the squeeze from the force of the Chinese push to develop its own chips and, since a copy of Windows XP would take the average paddy field worker six months to earn,* Microsoft will have an uphill struggle in the territory too, we feel.

The V-Dragon has a 32-bit RISC core and claims 64-bit read and write data buses for Processor Local Bus (PLB). The Memory Management Unit runs 16KB instruction and 16KB data caches, while the chip's High Speed Memory Controller is capable of supporting up to 4 SDRAM banks and a maximum total of 1GB SDRAM, the company says.

Chairman of Culturecom Frank Cheung said the V-Dragon Midori Linux embedded architecture "is in line with the Chinese government's IT policy." He added: "Culturecom is confident it will make a significant impact on market share with this new development."

The chip was shown off recently at "The first Conference on the Development of Chinese IT and V-Dragon CPU Trade Forum" in Hong Kong. µ

*INQUIRER estimate
** Midori is actually a Transmeta established project. Ed.

[DarkWaters]

http://content.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20030801S0008

HONG KONG - Processor and software developer Transmeta Corp. is joining with two Hong Kong-based companies to form a joint venture to develop and sell the Midori Linux operating system together with embedded and portable computing equipment into the Chinese market.
The partners are Culturecom Holdings Ltd., the developer of a processor that supports Chinese characters, and eForce Holdings Ltd., a logistics and sales group.

Culturecom has already worked with Transmeta and IBM on the development of its V-Dragon processor.

Now through a complex arrangement of company holdings Transmeta, Culturecom and eForce are to control two companies, Beijing Chinese 2000 Technology Ltd., developing hardware, and Beijing Redflag Chinese 2000 Software Technology Ltd., for software. The former is to be wholly owned by the group and the later is a joint venture with a subsidiary of the Beijing Chinese Academy of Sciences.

At the top of the complex tree of company holdings is a venture called Chinese 2 Linux (Holdings) Ltd. (C2L). The partners said Transmeta will hold 16.7 percent of the stock; eForce will hold 42.5 percent; and Culturecom will own 40.8 percent.

C2L, has contracted to pay Transmeta licensing fees to use and develop the Midori operating system, and its subsidiaries would be engaged mainly in the development and sale of Midori Linux application software and embedded devices, Culturecom said.

The creation of C2L is a change of direction for Culturecom and eForce who had been working together on the creation of a Linux variant called Chinese 2000.

Culturecom also announced that trading in its stock on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange resumed with on July 30. The stock had been suspended since July 23.

[DarkWaters]

Published comics? Something is definately not right about this one. PLA fingerprints all over this.

http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20030728S0067

Culturecom Holdings Ltd., a publisher of Chinese language "fighting" comics that migrated into information technology in the 1990s

[GOP_1900AD]

If Transmeta are involved, then, almost by extension, so are Elbrus. Elbrus has an interesting pedigree. They embody technology from three sources. The first, as mentioned, are indigenous R&D efforts of the Soviet Strategic Nuclear Rocket Forces. The second are the dupes at Sun Microsystems who got conned into thinking that *Sun* would be the benificiary of a "parternship" that the Communists conned Bill Joy (and subsequently, McNealy) into back around the last days of the Gorby admin. And finally, they have taken in the tech developed by Putin's operation in Dresden (Robotron plus stolen IP from any Western companies they could get it from) ca. late 1980s. What a tangled web.

[GOP_1900AD]

Of note....

[Paul Ross]

Thanks for the info...very interesting perspective!