BYD has always been full of confidence in the development of China's domestic core technology, its founder Wang Chuanfu said recently that "chips are man-made, not God-made".
Recently BYD launched a purely domestic notebook, with practical action to prove the broad prospects of domestic core technology.
The most special thing about this laptop, which is designed and manufactured by BYD, is that it is 100% made in China.
From the appearance of the design, body materials, to the internal core of the CPU, GPU, operating system, every component of this laptop, every function, all come from the independent research and development of domestic enterprises, not dependent on any foreign companies.
While it's surprising that BYD was able to launch such a laptop, it's not much of a crossover operation.
Even ignoring its decade-long history of supplying and assembling laptop components, BYD started producing its own laptops for internal employees a few years ago.
Of course, the birth of these purely domestic notebook computers, BYD's design, production capacity alone is not enough, CPU, GPU, and other core components of the supply is more critical, and these inseparable from other domestic manufacturers of support.
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How to achieve 100% localization?
As a typical form of portable PC (personal computer), the core components of a notebook computer usually come from different manufacturers.
In the case of dependence on an external supply of core components, notebook design, production capacity, in fact, is equivalent to the ability to assemble, although there is a certain amount of technical content, but is far from the core technology.
In the past, Lenovo, Shenzhou, and other domestic notebook manufacturers have made a name for themselves with their strong design and production capabilities, and Lenovo has even occupied the world's first sales for many years, but its core components are highly dependent on foreign manufacturers to supply.
For example, the processor comes from Intel or AMD; the graphics card is a core graphics card from Intel or AMD or a discrete graphics card from AMD or NVIDIA; the memory comes from Magnesium or Kingston, and the hard drive comes from Samsung or Western Digital.
Obviously, the core technology of such a laptop is not autonomous, and the degree of localization is not really high. Is a product of the global supply chain, once Intel, NVIDIA, and other core components manufacturers pinch supply, Lenovo these laptop manufacturers can only scratch blind.
On the other hand, BYD launched a purely domestic laptop, although also assembled from different core components, the supplier is a domestic company, this difference will bring about a fundamental difference.
The processor in BYD's laptop is Loongson 3A4000, the graphics card is Jingjia Microelectronics JM7201, and it supports Loongson OS and domestic operating systems like KirinOS and UOS MIPS versions.
This can completely get rid of the dependence on foreign giants such as Intel, NVIDIA, Microsoft, if there is also ChangXin Memory and Yangtze Memory hard drive, 100% localization can be achieved.
Of course, there are at least two conditions to achieve domestic substitution. The other condition is that it must be available. BYD launched the laptop, apparently can also meet this condition.
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In terms of overall configuration, this Loongson laptop from BYD has been able to meet the multi-scenario needs of the daily office. Although there is still a gap compared to the high-end laptops in the market, it is fully up to the usable standard.
This laptop is equipped with a Loongson 3A4000 quad-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz, which is fully capable of most office and entertainment scenario computing jobs.
Jingjia Microelectronics JM7201 This discrete graphics card is relatively weak in terms of graphics computing power, but it is also capable of meeting most audio and entertainment needs.
Of course, judging from the specs related to this laptop configuration, the BYD Loongson laptop is not outstanding, and if the price doesn't surprise you, this laptop won't be very competitive in the market.
Regardless of the market performance, however, the launch of this BYD Loongson laptop is at least the completion of the leap from 0 to 1.
It shows that we have our own mature alternatives in some PC-related core components and core technology areas. With the GS464v micro-architecture of the Loongson 3A4000 processor and the Loongson OS, Kirin OS, and UOS MIPS versions of these home-grown operating systems, there is an ever-innovating technology ecosystem flourishing.
All indications are that the road to a localized PC, which countless aspiring individuals have been striving for, is already clear. What's more exciting is that the gap between the domestic technology and products and the international advanced level is narrowing at a visible speed.
The gap is narrowing
The most important core component of the BYD Loongson laptop, of course, is the Loongson 3A4000 processor, which uses the 28nm FDSOI process, limited by a more backward process, the performance can only be said to be unsatisfactory.
The next generation of the Loongson 3A4000, the Loongson 3A5000, was recently confirmed to use the SMIC 12nm process and has been successfully completed in the third quarter.
If mass production can be achieved next year, then the Loongson 3A5000 will have the opportunity to close the gap with the international advanced level in terms of process, after all, the CPU market leader Intel, the latest 11th generation Core Tiger Lake also uses a 10nm process.
In addition to the process, the Loongson 3A4000's GS464V core is comparable to AMD's original Zen architecture, and the Loongson 3A5000's core will be based on the GS464V for further upgrades.
In recent years, AMD's revolutionary "Zen" series architecture has brought a good turnaround in the CPU market, putting tremendous pressure on Intel. It is believed that Loongson, based on the GS464 series of cores, is also continuously improving its competitiveness.
In short, along with the release of the BYD Loongson laptop, the technical achievements in the field of domestic CPU, GPU, operating system, etc. have been further demonstrated.
What is certain is that, at least in the field of core PC-related technologies, China's independent process has taken a step forward and the gap between China and the international advanced level is no longer far.
The technical achievements in the field of PC-related, the impact of the scope is not limited to the PC market, the significance of the realization of PC localization should not be underestimated.
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The significance of pure domestic PC
Although the transition from the PC Internet era to the mobile Internet era has been completed and the global PC market has experienced several years of declining sales, this does not mean that PC devices are no longer important. Quite the contrary, the current PC equipment, and PC-related technology, the importance of the rise rather than fall.
On the one hand, the PC market has begun to pick up.IDC data show that in 2019, the global PC market bottomed out, the annual PC shipments reached 267 million units, an increase of 2.74% year-on-year.
And in the first half of this year, Covid-19 led to a surge in demand for work at home and online education, further accelerating the recovery of the global PC market.
On the other hand, PCs and servers are highly correlated. Work from home, online education demand rose, but also further stimulate cloud services, data center demand rose, which in turn brought a large number of new orders for the server market.
Coincidentally, both the PC market and the server market are benefiting from these companies Intel and Samsung.
This is because although PCs and servers are very different in terms of architecture and functionality, the most basic technical principles are not much different.
So after the launch of purely domestic PCs, the future of the domestic server variation is also very promising.
Among the technological changes already set off by new technologies such as cloud computing, big data, IoT, artificial intelligence, etc., a high degree of server participation is indispensable.
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