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ARM: “RISC-V Architecture: Understand the Facts”

riscv-basics.com

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Re: ARM: “RISC-V Architecture: Understand the Facts”

#91

Post by bmcusick »

Looking forward to "The Year of the RISC-V Desktop" articles.

That's a joke, but I think Windows vs. Linux is the right reference frame here, assuming that RISC-V proves out. Those who want to roll their own and control their own destiny may go with RISC-V, while those who want a packaged solution will go ARM. And ARM will have to get better to compete.

Western Digital has gone with RISC-V for a controller, because Western Digital is the kind of company that wants to commoditize its inputs so it can sell a packaged solution to its customers as cheaply as possible. I can also see Amazon or Google finding uses for RISC-V in their data centers.

Phones ... I'm not so sure. Maybe Apple could go that way, as they're vertically integrated and already make their Ax chips in house. But the Android OEMs wouldn't unless Google leads the way.

Re: ARM: “RISC-V Architecture: Understand the Facts”

#93

Post by snom380 »

cptskippy wrote: post #68
snom380 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the case today: ARM CPUs are sourced from different manufacturers and packaged together with other cores into SoCs, which have wildly varying support from their vendors. Some of these processors also have custom extensions. If you're worried about chip security when anyone can manufacture a chip, then sorry, we're already there, and RISC-V doesn't change that.

So what does it solve that's a problem today? * Serious question. Apart from the freedom and control aspects of the Open Source model, what is solved with an open source CPU architecture or what are the benefits? I can see being able to spin your own chips would enable an OEM/ODM to keep producing the same old design indefinitely where as reliance on Intel/AMD/Samsung/Mediatek means you have to refresh your design. T…

Again, being able to spin your own chips isn't really at issue here, that's already possible. ARM and MIPS will likely happily let you continue to make chips based on old cores as long as you continue to pay your license fees.

The freedoms from the Open Source model is substantial enough to make it attractive on that basis alone, just as for Linux/BSD. One example is Western Digital transitioning to RISC-V for their hard drive controllers. I would imagine being able to add your own instructions without having to deal with NDAs and non competes with ARM will be attractive to a lot of OEMs.

Just like with Linux, it's difficult to anticipate what intersting things will come out of RISC-V, but one interesting example is a formally verified RISC-V core, picorv32: https://github.com/cliffordwolf/riscv-formal/tree/master/cor... (presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU97ffHF_IQ). According to the author, this core will power safety critical applications at a synchrotron: https://theamphour.com/374-an-interview-with-clifford-wolf/

Re: ARM: “RISC-V Architecture: Understand the Facts”

#94

Post by delinka »

TomVDB wrote: post #75
gruturo wrote: post #49

If this article is genuine (there are many comments arguing it might not be) I would consider it an excellent endorsement of RISC-V. If a company with an awesome engineering, like I consider ARM to be, is scared to the point of authoring some FUD, RISC-V has to be _really_ promising!

When I search for "risc-v basics arm" in Google, this article comes up first as a paid Ad. So somebody is paying google to make this thing come up on top.

Can you screenshot that and link to the screenshot? I don't see it marked as an ad.

Re: ARM: “RISC-V Architecture: Understand the Facts”

#95

Post by snom380 »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #86
_chris_ wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say I'm making an SoC and I need an always-on service processor. It's a waste of effort for me to make it myself, so I'll either license one or grab one off the internet, if I could trust it. In the past, people just threw a little bit of money to ARM and called it a day. But now, I could grab picorv32 or rocket for free off the internet. Both have been taped out in this capacity before, both speak standard bus…

>Sure, it's not a resounding success story, but it helps me get my SoC to market sooner and at a lower cost (no need to even spend time negotiating with anybody). Ok, but you're then dumping what at least a million dollars into someone else's firmware that is unsupported if there is an issue? IDK. I can think of lots of cases where it might make sense for the hobbiest, or for softcores or for weird applications - but…

Part of what you get with ARM is certainly support, but a lot of it is also tooling, OS support and so on. There's a _lot_ of vendors outside the traditional big ones. And even the big ones like Samsung has used OpenRisc for service processors before.

Re: ARM: “RISC-V Architecture: Understand the Facts”

#96

Post by sannee »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #81

IDK... Everyone freaking out about how "disruptive" an open source core would be... You still need someone to place it on silicon (unless you want to waste most of your FPGA on a soft core) and you need someone to make peripherals which lets be honest is 80%-95% of what Cortex M-type embedded processors are doing at any given time. These seem like the major barriers that aren't solved by removing a licensing fee for…

> unless you want to waste most of your FPGA on a soft core

Huh?

As an exercise in FPGA stuff, I decided to use PicoRV32 on a small MAX10 8k FPGA. The core itself consumes easily under a quarter of the logic blocks.

Re: ARM: “RISC-V Architecture: Understand the Facts”

#97

Post by majewsky »

ksec wrote: post #70
jchw wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some open source projects are different. A lot of them do not cater to end users directly. But if you want to talk about open source security, take a look at how OpenBSD handles issues; they definitely aren't messing around.

I have been wondering, how far are we from a simple but powerful enough open source RISC-V CPU running OpenBSD in our Router or some Network Appliance.

You might want to have a look at lowRISC. https://www.lowrisc.org

Re: ARM: “RISC-V Architecture: Understand the Facts”

#99

Post by Iwan-Zotow »

jacknews wrote: post #22

These facts seem fairly true, it's a new thing and doesn't have much momentum yet. I don't think there are that many people yet considering risc V seriously for current commercial implementations, rather than keeping an eye on it for future projects, but I'm sure there will be once momentum builds.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/01/wdc_risc_v_edge_str...

Re: ARM: “RISC-V Architecture: Understand the Facts”

#100

Post by TomVDB »

delinka wrote: post #94
TomVDB wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I search for "risc-v basics arm" in Google, this article comes up first as a paid Ad. So somebody is paying google to make this thing come up on top.

Can you screenshot that and link to the screenshot? I don't see it marked as an ad.

I wish I did. It doesn't come up like that anymore.
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