China's home grown 64-bit CPU is gaining ground, EE Times (http://www.eet.com/semi/news/OEG20030305S0018) reports. The weekly has scooped an interview with BLX's chief executive, David Shen, who says the Dragon CPU, known as Godson-2, has 15 design wins. The goal is to have a hundred design wins.

It's loosely based on the MIPS processor, but loose enough to avoid royalty payments, notes EE Times. Much like China's home-grown 3G air interface TD-SCDMA avoids royalty payments to Qualcomm. Or so the Chinese hope - it's hard to see what Western vendors can do when faced with a refusal.

Godson-3 will be a 500MHz part destined for grid computing and other servers. China's own Red Flag Linux is one of 60 companies supporting the project.

The People's Republic announced its first DSP last week. ®

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