cross pond high tech

RISC-V is having itself a moment.

What began as an effort to produce an open-source ISA for low-end microcontrollers and other simple kinds of chips is becoming a genuine ecosystem. RISC-V CPUs still can’t challenge the likes of a Cortex-A76 or x86 CPU, but they’re creeping up the performance charts. Two recent developments could give the project a further boost: First, MIPS (formerly Wave Computing) has announced it will begin developing its own RISC-V CPUs. Second, China’s new Loongson CPU, based on the MIPS64 architecture, may be looking for a new ISA.

 

Wave Computing was an AI company developing around a MIPS architecture that eventually bought MIPS Technologies itself before collapsing into bankruptcy. In the aftermath, Wave announced it would rebrand as MIPS. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, MIPS Technologies (not just MIPS) was a RISC CPU developer who found success in the 1980s before being acquired by SGI in the early 1990s. SGI eventually decided to go with the then-upcoming Itanium in lieu of continuing to develop its own in-house CPUs, so MIPS was reborn as a tech licensing company.

 

MIPS enjoyed a bit of a run very early in the history of Android, but ARM’s growing hegemony drove it from the marketplace. Since then, we haven’t heard much about the ISA. It’s a little odd for Wave Computing to rebrand as MIPS, then declare it was building a new RISC-V CPU, but that’s what the company has done.

 

“Going forward, the restructured business will be known as MIPS, reflecting the company’s strategic focus on the groundbreaking RISC-based processor architectures which were originally developed by MIPS,” a company statement read. “MIPS is developing a new industry-leading standards-based 8th generation architecture, which will be based on the open-source RISC-V processor standard.”

 

As for the Loongson, we’ve talked about this CPU family before. Loongson is one of China’s homegrown CPU efforts and is built around MIPS64. The current iteration of the core is known as the Loongson 3B4000 and is reportedly clocked between 1.8GHz – 2GHz. It offers four cores and is built on a 28nm process. It’s said to offer a 128KB L1 split into 64KB L1i and 64KB L1d, and 256KB of L2 cache per core. There’s an 8MB L3 presumably shared between all cores.

 

The next iteration of the Loongson 5000 series, set to launch this year, will be the last variant of the CPU family to support the MIPS64 architecture. The Loongson 3A5000 is a quad-core chip for client PCs and the Loongson 3C5000 features up to 16 cores and is intended for servers. Both are expected to be fabbed at TSMC on a 12nm process node. THG reports that the chips are based on an internal architecture that’s fully MIPS64 compatible, with larger caches and a new memory controller.

 

Loongson’s executives have stated they are “looking forward to join the open-source instruction consortium,” which is being interpreted to mean that China intends to shift to RISC-V in the future.

 

The timing of these announcements probably isn’t coincidental. CIP United, a Chinese company, controls all MIPS licensing rights in China, Hong Kong, and Macau. It takes a few years to design a new CPU, which is why the Loongson project isn’t moving to RISC-V right away. If the Loongson 5000 family launches in 2021, we could reasonably expect to see the RISC-V-based follow-up in 2023 – 2024.

 

We’re still a few years away from RISC-V CPUs that can stand up to ARM or x86 cores, performance-wise, but there’s been a lot of interesting activity in this space the past few years. China is said to be ramping its efforts to create a semiconductor ecosystem that doesn’t depend on the United States. The country may feel that the open-source nature of the RISC-V ISA offers it the best chance to develop a CPU core that can’t be interdicted.

On an ordinary work day in mid-2016, a handful of Facebook engineers were sitting on the couches in a corner of the company's Menlo Park, California, headquarters when one of them tossed out a wacky idea.He suggested doing something that had never been done before and could potentially upend the $350 billion telecom market."It can't be so difficult to build our own system," the engineer said, referring to the telecom equipment that sends data across cables and wireless networks, and which the engineer suspected could be made to operate faster and cheaper than the pricey equipment sold by big vendors like Nortel, Huawei, Ericsson, Cisco or Juniper Networks.The engineer was suggesting building the telecom industry's first "white box" transponder, made with off-the-shelf parts such as chips from Broadcom and Acacia Communications, optical equipment from Lumentum, and software from one of the many new networking startups cropping up these days.Facebook's director of engineering Hans-Juergen Schmidtke, who was among those on the couch that day, was at first a naysayer."I was a little bit skeptical about it at the time," he recounted to Business Insider. As a former engineer at Juniper Networks, Schmidtke knew from experience that building telecom equipment systems was an expensive undertaking that involved hiring teams of specially trained engineers and sizeable R&D budgets. "Building a system ten years ago was like building a new company," Schmidtke said. Still, Schmidtke agreed to help this tiny group hack together a white box system at one of Facebook's famous hackathons. Three months later they had a working prototype. Six months later, on November 1, they announced it to the world as a real product called Voyager. The product’s unveiling sent shockwaves through the telecom industry, putting gear makers on notice that the lucrative market they controlled for decades was about to get turned upside down — and not necessarily to their advantage.While the effort is essentially a side-project for Facebook, a social networking company whose bread-and-butter business is online advertising, the stakes could not be higher for the telecom equipment companies which risk seeing their specialized products reduced to interchangeable commodities and their influence diminished. For the industry’s established companies, there’s unease about Facebook’s growing clout and its ultimate intentions. But in a sign of how serious Facebook’s foray is being taken, there’s already a recognition by some that the repercussions could be even more painful it they don’t adapt.Voyager has already been tested by Facebook and European telecom company Telia over Telia’s thousand-kilometer-telecom network. Plus, German telecom equipment maker ADVA Optical Networking is manufacturing the device and, as of a few weeks ago had nine customers trying it out for their telecom needs, a mix of big telecom companies and enterprises, it said. And Paris based telecom provider, Orange is also testing the device, working with Equinix and African telecom company MTN."We pulled it off essentially showing that when a few engineers can build a system within six months, the world has changed," Schmidtke said.One person told us that Schmidtke, who is insanely proud of Voyager, has become a star in his own corner of the tech world. When he and his team "go to conferences, they treat him like a tech celebrity, like a rock band," that person said.

La une de couverture de The Economist est tombée pile-poil à point pour ma keynote de demain !

Facebook et Orange, en tant que membres du Telecom Infra Project (TIP) lancent au sein de l’Orange Fab France un nouvel accélérateur « Telecom Track », conçu spécifiquement pour soutenir les start-up centrées sur le développement des infrastructures réseau.
Les start-up sélectionnées seront accompagnées par Orange et bénéficieront d'un accès à son réseau mondial de ressources ainsi que du soutien des Ecosystem Accelerator Centres du TIP (TEAC) et de Facebook.
Orange collabore avec le TIP* et Facebook afin de soutenir des start-up centrées sur l’innovation des infrastructures réseau en lançant le nouveau « Telecom Track » dans le cadre de son programme d'accélération Orange Fab en France. Ce partenariat recherchera les meilleures innovations et talents du secteur, soutiendra et conseillera les start-up avec l’aide des experts Orange, TIP et Facebook, et facilitera en parallèle la création de réseaux et les opportunités d’investissement internes et externes.

Le « Telecom Track » d’Orange Fab France

Le projet sera géré par Orange Fab France, le programme d’accélération d’Orange pour les start-up, depuis le site d’Orange Gardens, un éco-campus situé à Châtillon, près de Paris entièrement dédié à la recherche et à l’innovation. En contact direct avec les  meilleurs experts d’Orange et de ses partenaires, les start-up pourront aborder  les questions majeures relatives aux réseaux, allant de leur gestion jusqu’aux nouvelles technologies d’accès, et ce dans plusieurs régions.
Les start-up bénéficieront de tous les avantages du programme Orange Fab existant, au sein duquel elles participeront à des ateliers dédiés et des sessions de tutorat avec des spécialistes. Elles recevront un financement optionnel de 15 000 € et auront accès à un espace de travail sur le site d’Orange Gardens, où sont basées les équipes de recherche et d'innovation du Groupe. En complément du support du réseau mondial Orange Fab, les start-up pourront consulter également des experts de la communauté du TIP, des TEAC et de Facebook. Ce cadre leur permettra d’établir des connections privilégiées avec les équipes d’innovation, les partenaires d'investissement et les investisseurs en capital-risque qui pourront leur apporter une expertise plus poussée et des financements potentiels afin de lancer de nouveaux produits et services.

L’appel à projets démarre aujourd’hui et les candidats ont jusqu’au 14 mai 2017 pour soumettre leur candidature. Trois semaines plus tard, les start-up sélectionnées rejoindront le programme d’accélération et auront l’opportunité de participer en juin à un événement de lancement organisé par Orange qui réunira des cadres d’Orange, du TIP et de Facebook, ainsi que des partenaires et investisseurs en capital-risque. Une fois avancées dans le processus d’accélération, les start-up sélectionnées seront invitées à intervenir lors d'un événement des TEAC qui se tiendra à San Francisco à la fin de l’année.
Les candidats doivent être basés en France et les projets doivent être soumis sur le site www.orangefabfrance.fr

« Dans le cadre de l’évolution de notre réseau vers la 5G et les technologies futures, l’opportunité d’innovation au niveau des réseaux est énorme, et il est essentiel de soutenir les grands esprits et les talents qui développeront l’innovation dans le domaine des télécommunications », a déclaré Mari-Noëlle Jégo-Laveissière, Vice-présidente exécutive Innovation, Marketing et Technologies d’Orange. « Nous pensons que notre partenariat avec Facebook et le lancement du nouveau Telecom Track nous permettra d’encourager et de soutenir cette communauté de start-up qui a la possibilité de faire bouger les choses au sein de cet espace et de développer de nouvelles innovations dans les télécommunications. »
« Facebook est impatient de collaborer avec Orange et le TIP afin de soutenir cet accélérateur de start-up », a déclaré Jay Parikh, Directeur Ingénierie et Infrastructure chez Facebook. « En travaillant conjointement, nous espérons aider à identifier et soutenir l’innovation des infrastructures réseau des télécommunications tout en préparant la voie vers de futures découvertes. »  

L’engagement d’Orange Digital Ventures

Afin d’accélérer encore davantage le développement des start-up participantes, Orange Digital Ventures soutiendra ce nouveau « Telecom Track » et apportera des conseils pour le financement ainsi que des opportunités de création de réseau via Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) à travers ses partenariats d’investisseurs. Orange Digital Ventures contribue d’ores et déjà activement à la transformation du paysage des télécommunications à travers son portefeuille d’investissements, et pourra éventuellement contribuer au financement de certaines des start-up participantes.

*Orange fait partie du Telecom Infra Project (TIP), une initiative mondiale centrée sur l’ingénierie qui vise à transformer l’approche traditionnelle afin de construire et de déployer des infrastructures réseau de télécommunications.