Chinese company wants to make x86 processors with ddr5 and pci-e 4.0 support

The Chinese company Zhaoxin has x86 processors with ddr5 and pci-e 4.0 support on its roadmap. The chip designer showed that roadmap during the presentation of new 28nm processors. The company wants to release 16nm variants.

At an event in Shanghai, Zhaoxin showed his roadmap showing the KX-5000, KX-6000 and KX-7000 processors based on the x86 platform. The latter generation should support ddr5 and pci-e 4.0, but further details, such as which production process the chips will be used for and when they should be released, are not known.

The chip designer announced that its new KX-5000 series consists of quad-cores and octa-cores, which the company, like the previous ZX-C + generation at 28nm, has made at the Chinese Huali Microelectronics. The new generation supports ddr4, pci-e 3.0 and usb 3.1 gen 2. In addition, the chips can play 4k video.

The architecture of the KX-6000 remains unchanged, but Zhaoxin will adopt a tick-tock strategy and have these chips produced at 16nm in the future. This allows the company to increase the clock speed of the quadcores and octacores from 2GHz to 3GHz. It is unknown when the KX-6000 chips will appear.

The reports in the Chinese media about the Zhaoxin announcement have been listed on the 3DCenter forum. Zhaoxin is a fabless manufacturer and only designs the chips. The company works together with VIA Technologies and can thus obtain the necessary x86 license. Zhaoxin already announced a year ago that he wanted to make 16nm processors.