Tsinghua Students Shine in National Student Computer System Capability Challenge 2024
On August 18, the awards ceremony for the 8th LoongSon Cup – National Student Computer System Capability Challenge (NSCSCC 2024) CPU Design Competition took place at Chongqing University of Technology. The “JIT” team, composed of Li Zengyu, Yue Zhangqiao, Zhang Zuoyuan from the Department of Computer Science and Technology, and Zhao Hanyuan from the School of Software, won the only Special Prize. This marks the fourth consecutive year that the Department of Computer Science and Technology has secured the top award in this competition. The team was guided by Professor Chen Kang, Associate Professor Lu Youyou, and instructors Li Shanshan and Zheng Ninghan. Graduate students Chen Jiajie, Gao Huan’ang, and Liu Mingdao also provided technical support.
The “JIT” team’s design was based on Loongson’s 32-bit LoongArch architecture. They successfully implemented an advanced out-of-order five-issue processor on the competition’s FPGA development board. The processor was equipped with the TAGE-SC-L branch predictor, achieving an Instructions Per Cycle (IPC) rate of 1.14. Compared to the official performance baseline, this represented an IPC improvement of 1.53x and an overall speedup of 3.24x. In addition, the team successfully ran a desktop environment based on the X Window System on the 32-bit LoongArch architecture for the first time, with full USB keyboard and mouse support. They also provided the latest U-Boot 2024.07 support for the architecture, and successfully ported and executed the Django web framework on Python 3. This year’s competition saw 110 teams from universities across the country, with 32 teams advancing to the finals. The competition required participants to develop micro-systems supporting the LoongArch baseline instruction set, awarding one Special Prize, two First Prizes, six Second Prizes, and 27 Third Prizes.
From August 28 to September 2, the Department of Computer Science and Technology celebrated further victories in the 4th Operating System Design Competition and the 5th Compiler System Design Competition (Huawei Bisheng Cup). In the Operating System Design Competition, the “金博老师yyds” team, consisting of Zheng Youjie and Zhu Yi under the guidance of Associate Professor Chen Yu, won the First Prize. Their winning project employed the Rust programming language, creating a modular operating system kernel that supports Linux applications. This design offers strong support for intelligent robotic systems and smart embedded systems with diverse requirements and behaviors. Additionally, three other teams guided by Chen Yu – “NotNull”, “return_0;”, and “World’s Cutest Fuyuki” – won Second Prizes in the Operating System Design Competition and the Compiler System Design Competition (Huawei Bisheng Cup). Graduate students Jia Yuekai and Fan Ruwen provided technical assistance. The Operating System Design Competition, launched in February, spanned 200 days and attracted nearly 600 teams, with around 200 advancing to the finals. After multiple rounds of evaluations, 12 teams were awarded the top honor of First Prize. The Compiler System Design Competition (Huawei Bisheng Cup) began in April and involved 120 days of intense competition, with nearly 200 teams participating and about 70 advancing to the finals. After thorough evaluations, four teams were awarded First Prizes, and 10 teams received Second Prizes.
Jointly initiated by the Ministry of Education and the expert group on system capacity development research, the NSCSCC is the only national competition for university students to independently design a general-purpose CPU, an operating system, and a compiler. The competition aims to advance the training of innovative talents in the computer field.