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Zhaoxin (Shanghai Zhaoxin Semiconductor Co., Ltd.; , ) is a fabless semiconductor company, created in 2013 as a joint venture between VIA Technologies and the Shanghai Municipal Government. The company manufactures
x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...
-compatible desktop and laptop CPUs. The term '' Zhào xīn'' means ''million core''.In China 兆 can mean either short-scale million (1e6) or trillion (1e12). However, for IT-related topics 兆 always means mega/million in mainland China. The processors are created mainly for the Chinese market: the venture is an attempt to reduce the Chinese dependence on foreign technology.


Background

''Zhaoxin'' is a joint venture between VIA Technologies and the Shanghai Municipal Government. In 2021 it was reported that VIA has a 14.75% shareholding in the company. China has a
domestic policy Domestic policy, also known as internal policy, is a type of public policy overseeing administrative decisions that are directly related to all issues and activity within a state's borders. It differs from foreign policy, which refers to the ways ...
to "replace all foreign hardware and software from its public infrastructure with homegrown solutions" by 2023 (the so-called 3–5–2 policy). VIA holds an x86 license which allows its subsidiaries to produce compatible microprocessors; this allows Zhaoxin to develop x86 computer chips.


Architecture

The architecture of the initial ZX family of processors is a continuation of VIA's Centaur Technology x86-64 Isaiah design. The ZX-A and ZX-B are based on the VIA Nano X2 C4350AL. The ZX-B is identical to the ZX-A, except that it is manufactured by Shanghai Huali Microelectronics Corporation (HLMC) . The ZX-C is based on the VIA QuadCore-E & Eden X4. Zhaoxin calls this architecture "Zhangjiang", however, it is thought that the basis is the VIA Isaiah 2 architecture. Like the VIA processors they were based on, early ZX processors were
ball grid array A ball grid array (BGA) is a type of surface-mount packaging (a chip carrier) used for integrated circuits. BGA packages are used to permanently mount devices such as microprocessors. A BGA can provide more interconnection pins than can be pu ...
chips sold pre-soldered onto a motherboard. Zhaoxin came to the attention of the North American and European technology press when, in late 2017 and early 2018, it launched the ZX-D processor and revealed plans for future products. Zhaoxin calls the ZX-D architecture " Wudaokou"; this is a complete re-design of the VIA Isaiah. It is also a departure from earlier microarchitectures, such as ZhangJiang, which were a lightly modified version of a VIA Technologies (Centaur) architecture. WuDaoKou was a new and complete SoC design. Changes implemented in the ZX-D included the integration of a northbridge, like in modern x86 designs, as well as the addition of Chinese cryptographic functions. The ZX-D series also had an integrated graphics processing unit (iGPU) based on
S3 Graphics S3 Graphics, Ltd. was an American computer graphics company. The company sold the S3 Trio, Trio, S3 ViRGE, ViRGE, S3 Savage, Savage, and S3 Chrome, Chrome series of graphics processors. Struggling against competition from 3dfx Interactive, ATI T ...
technology (previously owned by VIA). The former ZX naming was dropped around 2018 in favour of the KX ("KaiXian") designation for desktop processors and the KH ("KaisHeng") designation for server processors.


Development

The successor to the ZX-D, the KX-6000
system on a chip A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or Electronics, electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with computer memory, ...
(also called ZX-E), was demonstrated to the press in September 2018. The architecture, an evolution of the ZX-D architecture, was called "
Lujiazui Lujiazui (, ) is a locality in Shanghai, a peninsula formed by a bend in the Huangpu River. Since the early 1990s, Lujiazui has been developed specifically as a new financial district of Shanghai. The decision to earmark Lujiazui for this purp ...
". The KX-6000 was formally launched in 2019. In June 2019 the KX-6000 was reported to being built on a 16 nm TSMC process. The chip has a DirectX 11.1 compatible iGPU. In 2022, Zhaoxin was noted to have added ZX-E specific compiler support for the
GNU Compiler Collection The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is a collection of compilers from the GNU Project that support various programming languages, Computer architecture, hardware architectures, and operating systems. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes ...
. The successor to the KX-6000, the ZX-F or KX-7000 processor series, was initially planned for release in 2021. The KX-7000 chip was reported to be planned for release on a 7 nm process with DDR5 support. An alleged benchmark result for a ZX-F appeared on GeekBench in 2020. The KX-7000 was finally released in December 2023, two years late. According to test results reported by Tom's Hardware, this processor was twice as fast as the KX-6000 series that came before it. The benchmark score indicated that not only had clock speeds improved substantially, but also instructions-per-clock. In comparison, the KX-7000 was deemed to be on par with similar processors made by AMD or Intel in the mid-to-late 2010s. Zhaoxin was itself reported as saying that the KX-7000 reached the same level of performance as the seventh-generation Intel Core i5-7400 (which was launched in 2017).


Discrete GPU

In 2020 Zhaoxin announced it was planning to release a dedicated graphics card.


Summary of architecture


Uses

Zhaoxin processors have mainly been used for Chinese laptops. Outside China, Zhaoxin processors have been used in some
NAS Nas (born 1973) is the stage name of American rapper Nasir Jones. Nas, NaS, or NAS may also refer to: Aviation * Nasair, a low-cost airline carrier and subsidiary based in Eritrea * National Air Services, an airline in Saudi Arabia ** Nas Air (S ...
appliances, most notably the QNAP TVS-675.ITPro
Qnap TVS-675 review: Noteworthy, but not impressive
17 Jan 2022
Archived
on 26 Jan 2022.


Performance

The Zhaoxin ZX-C+ 4701 CPU was reviewed in 2020, and showed significantly worse performance against older Intel (i5 2500K) and AMD (Athlon 3000G) processors. The ZX-D was noted to have roughly the performance of the Intel Silvermont (Avoton) processors (which were launched in 2013). The ZX-E / KX-6000 is reported to have a 50% performance increase over the KX-5000, and comparable performance to a 7th generation Intel i5 core processor from 2016 (namely the Core i5-7400). The 8-core ZX-E U6780A was reviewed by Linus Tech Tips in August 2020. The review processor was benchmarked to be slightly slower than a 3rd generation Intel i5 quad-core processor (originally released in 2012–2013) using Cinebench. Gaming performance was noted to be poor, whilst the machine itself was noted to be expensive for its performance by 2020 standards.
Tom's Hardware ''Tom's Hardware'' is an online publication owned by Future plc and focused on technology. It was founded in 1996 by Thomas Pabst. It provides articles, news, price comparisons, videos and reviews on computer hardware and high technology. The s ...
also reviewed the U6780A and reported poor gaming performance in 2020. The aim for the ZX-F series is for performance parity with the 2018 series
Ryzen Ryzen ( ) is a brand of multi-core x86-64 microprocessors, designed and marketed by AMD for desktop, mobile, server, and embedded platforms, based on the Zen microarchitecture. It consists of central processing units (CPUs) marketed for mai ...
processors (i.e. the AMD
Zen+ Zen+ is the name for a computer processor microarchitecture by AMD. It is the successor to the first gen Zen microarchitecture, and was first released in April 2018, powering the second generation of Ryzen processors, known as Ryzen 2000 for mai ...
microarchitecture, the predecessor to AMD Zen 2).


See also

*
Semiconductor industry The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. Its roots can be traced to the invention of the transistor ...
* Semiconductor industry in China * AMD–Chinese joint venture *
Loongson Loongson () is the name of a family of general-purpose, MIPS architecture-compatible, later in-house LoongArch architecture central processing unit, microprocessors, as well as the name of the Chinese Fabless manufacturing, fabless company (Loo ...
* FeiTeng * Sunway (processor) * :Microprocessors made in China


References


Notes


External links


Zhaoxin homepage

WikiChip article on Zhaoxin
{{Electronics industry in China VIA Technologies x86 microprocessors Microprocessors made in China Technology companies established in 2013 Technology companies of China Companies based in Shanghai Fabless semiconductor companies