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Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

tomshardware.com

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Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#11

Post by ummonk »

Taniwha wrote: post #8
bhouston wrote: post #6

I think that RISC-V has a long way to go to be actually competitive with ARM on a IPC basis. Although it is great to have more competition in the market I believe that this is more of a 5-10 year goal rather than distinctly near term.

RISC-V is an instruction set - I think you're confusing that particular implementations of RISC-V (of which there are few yet)

No, GP is saying that there is a long way to go before RISC-V implementations can match ARM implementations in competitiveness on an IPC basis.

Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#14

Post by kinghajj »

bhouston wrote: post #9
Taniwha wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RISC-V is an instruction set - I think you're confusing that particular implementations of RISC-V (of which there are few yet)

But none of them are competitive at all on an IPC basis right? Don't get me wrong, I would love a RISC-V chip that is competitive with the ARM chips in smartphones but I think we are quite aways away from it for the time being. RISC-V is most successful as microcontrollers who do not have to be state-of-the-art fast, they just have to work reliably.

BOOM is close to Ivy Bridge IPC in one benchmark. https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~celio/

Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#16

Post by lallysingh »

bhouston wrote: post #9
Taniwha wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RISC-V is an instruction set - I think you're confusing that particular implementations of RISC-V (of which there are few yet)

But none of them are competitive at all on an IPC basis right? Don't get me wrong, I would love a RISC-V chip that is competitive with the ARM chips in smartphones but I think we are quite aways away from it for the time being. RISC-V is most successful as microcontrollers who do not have to be state-of-the-art fast, they just have to work reliably.

If RISC-V takes off, I think we'll first see it come from small shops that put it on the side of a chip with other functionality they're selling. Then it may bubble up into more advanced implementations as demand for the instruction set builds up.

Process tech is slowing, so I think that costs of the best processes will go down and we'll see more competition for CPU designs.

Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#17

Post by ummonk »

Taniwha wrote: post #5
jimmaswell wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we want RISC-V on laptops?

Why not? a diverse ecosystem of silicon with some actual competition is going to help get us out of this US-centric intel/amd world where all laptops are essentially the same

It appears likely that Apple will be transitioning to ARM for its laptops in the future so regardless we should start seeing architecture diversity in laptops.

Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips

#20

Post by cmrdporcupine »

The problem is that while RISC-V may deliver an excellent open ISA, there is no equivalent open solution for the GPU/display controller side. As I understand it, the GPU world is full of patents and dominated by just a few parties. I don't think there's something that Huawei or other Chinese manufacturers could easily start with and extend.

So I can see RISC-V being ideal for applications that are not user facing or don't require fancy graphics -- servers, network hardware, microcontrollers, etc. But it would be a tough call to put one in a phone, tablet, or laptop.

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