A Chinese company called Phytium has announced its next-generation CPU architecture, which claims to offer competitive performance against AMD and ARM processors. The new CPU, dubbed FTC870, is designed for server applications and boasts a 20% improvement over its predecessor, FTC860.

According to the company, the FTC870 has been tested with the SPEC CPU2017 benchmark, which is widely used to evaluate server CPUs. The results show that the FTC870 can match or even surpass the ARM Neoverse N1 and N2 cores, as well as the AMD EPYC 7443, which is based on the Zen 3 architecture.

The FTC870 has a clock speed of 3 GHz, which is lower than the 4 GHz of the AMD EPYC 7443. However, the FTC870 compensates with a higher IPC (instructions per cycle) and a larger L3 cache of 64 MB. The FTC870 also supports DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0 interface, which are expected to be the next standards for server platforms.

Phytium is one of the few Chinese chipmakers that have adopted the ARM instruction set, which allows it to leverage a more mature and diverse ecosystem. The company started out by using the SPARC instruction set, which is outdated and less popular. Phytium has been developing its own CPU cores since 2014 and has gradually improved its performance and efficiency.

The FTC870 is a significant achievement for Phytium and the Chinese server market, which has been facing challenges due to the US sanctions that restrict access to advanced components. By developing its own CPU architecture, Phytium aims to reduce its dependence on foreign suppliers and provide a viable alternative for domestic customers.

Phytium plans to launch the FTC870 in 2024 and expects to ship more than 10 million units in the first year. The company also has ambitions to expand its product portfolio to desktop and embedded markets, as well as to explore new domains such as AI and cloud computing.