These domestic cpus have three characteristics: first, the group, not one or two enterprises, but a number of enterprises in the same period of time; Second, advanced technology, some close to the world’s leading level or equivalent; The third is to quickly produce benefits in the front line of information construction.

People are excited for the domestic CPU group breakthrough, but more concerned about how the domestic CPU can really form an industry and drive the development of our information industry.

Domestic CPU must do

The Chinese name for a CPU is “central processing unit”, sometimes also known as a processor or chip. To develop domestic CPU and end the situation of no “core” in China’s information industry has been haunting the dream of several generations of patriotic science and technology workers for many years.

Cpus are still a highly profitable business. CPU is one of the most profitable components in the “nerve center” of automobile, aircraft, ship and industrial control. Intel, the world’s largest CPU company, is one of the most profitable companies in the world, with a profit of $3.11 billion in 2002, ranking fifth among global IT companies. Ni Guangnan, a computer expert and academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said China ranks among the world’s top producers of computers, mobile phones, VCDS and DVDS, but profits are low, partly because it doesn’t have its own CPU.

During the “Sixth Five-Year Plan”, “Seventh Five-Year Plan”, our country a total of 33 units have introduced integrated circuit production line. The two biggest chip-related projects of the 1990s were “Project 908” and “Project 909,” for which the state invested tens of billions of yuan. Yet many projects are often well planned and have fallen behind by the time they are implemented. There is no escaping the fact that 80% of the chips needed in China are imported, and almost 100% of the PCS and servers are loaded with imported cpus. And 80% of the domestic chip companies from abroad, earn only low superficial technology processing fees, the fundamental reason is the lack of independent core technology.

Drive the industry with design

Chip manufacturing is an expensive and risky business, with a typical 0.18-micron integrated circuit production line costing $1.5 billion. Li Guojie, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, pointed out that the leap-forward development of China’s IC industry should not rely on the assembly of low-end chips, but should focus on the chip design industry, relatively speaking, the chip design industry is intelligent-intensive industry, we can play to the advantage of late, high starting point.

Professor Yan Xiaolang of Zhejiang University, who is the team leader of the National “863” program for VlSI, told reporters: “In the past, semiconductor manufacturing technology has constrained the development of domestic cpus. Now, manufacturing is not a problem. Many foreign chip production lines have excess capacity, which we can use to produce our cpus.” Now, foreign-invested chip production lines have been opened in China, providing more convenience for CPU manufacturing.

At present, the design of very large scale integrated circuit with CPU as the core has been listed as the top priority project of the national “863 Program”, and has also been included in the first of the 12 major national science and technology projects of the “Fifteen Years”, which is one of the most intensive investment. Approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Shanghai, Xi ‘an, Wuxi, Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou and Shenzhen are building “national-level industrial bases for integrated circuit design”. Different from the past, this time the country put the support of domestic CPU in the early design, the focus is to break through the core technology of high-end chip design and development, and leave the manufacturing, packaging and so on to the market.