Loongson 3A6000 processor will support Simultaneous Multi-Threading for the first time

In May of this year, Loongson Technology, during the performance and cash dividend briefing of the first quarter of 2023, stated that the Loongson 3A6000 had been back from taping out, but after only preliminary testing, additional testing and optimization are required. It is anticipated that it would take another six months to a year before it could become an official product.

According to Phoronix, the recently released Linux 6.5 patch has confirmed that the Loongson 3A6000 processor will support Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT), meaning each physical core will have two logical cores. The Loongson 3A6000 processor is understood to have 8 cores, corresponding to 16 threads, while the future 16-core 3C6000 and 32-core 3D6000 will correspond to 32 and 64 threads respectively.

The Loongson 3A6000 processor not only supports SMT, but the patch also mentions that the processor will support 128-bit Vector Processor Extension Instructions (LSX) and 256-bit Advanced Vector Processing Extension Instructions (LASX). The latter two technologies are also part of the Loongson Architecture (LoongArch) used in the 3A5000 processor. Clearly, these new features can further enhance processor performance.

Loongson Technology had previously stated that, based on the current assessment, the performance of the Loongson 3A6000 could be compared to that of AMD’s Zen 2 architecture, manufactured on the 7nm process, equating to the level of Intel’s 10th generation Core. Of course, besides IPC and core count, other factors such as frequency and memory subsystem also affect the overall performance of the processor.

Additionally, Loongson Technology’s first big-little collaborative chip is expected to be taped out in 2024, likely under the model name Loongson 3B6000.