New Chinese CPU maker Phytium to release 7 nm and 5nm server CPUs, along with 14 nm processors for desktop and embedded markets

Intel just announced that its 7 nm CPUs may only be available by 2022 or even 2023, so it looks like AMD could dominate the PC processor market in a few years if it keeps pushing for 5 nm and beyond starting next year. However, AMD is not the only chip maker planning for 5 nm CPUs. In the past few years, we have been hearing that China with CPU producers like Zhaoxin is ready to make its own processors that at one point could rival Intel and AMD. For now, we are not really impressed with the Zhaoxin desktop CPUs released this year, as they barely compete with 2017 entry-level Intel Core CPUs, and it will most likely take a few more years to see a decent solution in this regard. Still, Zhaoxin is not the only Chinese CPU producer dreaming big. Phytium, a chip designer that specializes primarily in server-grade CPUs is now planning to expand its portfolio with desktop and embedded solutions throughout the next few years.

Phytium can already brag with 64-core server-grade CPUs like the FT-2000+/64 or Tengyun S2500, although we doubt they can compete with AMD’s EPYC models since these chips use TSMC’s 16 nm fabrication process. Nevertheless, Phytium hopes to tap TSMC’s 7 nm and 5 nm nodes for upcoming server-grade CPUs in the next few years. By the end of 2021, Phytium is planning to launch the Tengyun S6000 CPU that is expected to integrate up to 128 5 nm cores, doubling the performance of the current S2500 model.

The desktop and embedded CPUs are expected to be produced by the newly-built SMIC and UMC foundries in China, so these chips will not really benefit from cutting edge tech because the Chinese foundries are stuck with 14 nm nodes for now. Phytium is going to reveal a Tengrui D2000 desktop CPU in late 2020, while the Tengrui D3000 models should launch one year later. As for the embedded models, Phytium plans to release the first solutions by Q2 2021 with the Tengrui E2000 models, followed by the E3000 version some time in Q3 2022. The embedded solutions will also be 14 nm chips, and all the processors mentioned above will come with proprietary PSPA security tech.