I wonder if this will contribute to the world having RISC-V laptops sooner rather than later.
What OS would they run?
There's already good support in the Linux world. Hardware support is something Linux does very well IMO
Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips
31–40 of 162 posts
Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips
#32More like "Huawei seeks to survive in the future in spite of the US squeezing them. They want to believe these other chips will let them do that." I don't understand the tech well enough to know how much of a fairy tale or hope and a prayer strategy this is. But calling it "seeks independence" is some incredibly positive spin which makes me suspicious of the claims. If these other chips are so good, wouldn't you go a…
A one dimensional comparison like good or bad is not how these decisions get made.
Current ARM based chips are good enough for current applications. They come with massive app support and a mature ecosystem.
Given the risk of being kicked out of that ecosystem. The score tips in favor of this new technology.
Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
A Linux distro probably, at least initially.
Mostly likely, but Android is but a recompile away (sure, not so for 3rd party apps). Even today, with hardly any hardware, there's (to various degree of completion): Debian, Fedora, Slackware, FreeBSD, and seL4.
> sure, not so for 3rd party apps.
Ideally, once there is a JVM that runs on riscv, those apps are ported for free. An openJDK port is underway.
I have no idea how much work it would be for Android to port its APIs, but Google certainly has the manpower if this is something they want.
Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips
#34The 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…
> As I understand it, the GPU world is full of patents and dominated by just a few parties. This would be a impediment typically, but considering they're blackballed already, how beholden are they to patents? Block imports? Think that's being done already. Requiring US companies to not do business with them? That's being done already. At this point, they just have to ride out the US/China trade war and then when thin…
True.
If we're all just gonna take our marbles and go home, I guess there's nothing really stopping any of us from just making our own marbles.
Still pretty dumb to make your own marbles though. But I get your point there.
Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips
#35More like "Huawei seeks to survive in the future in spite of the US squeezing them. They want to believe these other chips will let them do that." I don't understand the tech well enough to know how much of a fairy tale or hope and a prayer strategy this is. But calling it "seeks independence" is some incredibly positive spin which makes me suspicious of the claims. If these other chips are so good, wouldn't you go a…
Software.
There's tremendous inertia in apps which is what gave x86 an effective monopoly in the 90'es, even when superior options were available (hello Alpha). Today the situation is actually better and with RISC-V having the same memory model as Arm, porting from an Arm version is way easier (Neon code not withstanding) but it's obviously way less attractive than running running existing code.
Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
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/
Using MHz as a divisor really benefits BOOM and extrapolating from IPC makes some assumptions regarding the future ability of the chip to scale to similar frequencies as Intel's product line.
Assuming the best performing BOOM chip refers to the 2018 HotChips tapeout, that chip operated at 1.0 GHz. The lowest speed Ivy Bridge Core/Pentium (a design getting close to a decade old, FWIW) was 2.5 GHz. This means on a core-to-core basis Ivy Bridge is 2.7x more performant. This ignores the benefit of the additional core count of the Core series of Ivy Bridge procs.
Today's 9900K is also around 40% more performant than the comparable Ivy Bridge (4960X). That would suggest the performance gains modern Intel design holds over BOOM is closer to 3.8x on a core-to-core basis.
Being within an order of magnitude performance-wise is impressive given that BOOM is mainly a one-man show. That said, having about a quarter of Intel's present chips' performance doesn't strike me as particularly "close".
Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips
#37More like "Huawei seeks to survive in the future in spite of the US squeezing them. They want to believe these other chips will let them do that." I don't understand the tech well enough to know how much of a fairy tale or hope and a prayer strategy this is. But calling it "seeks independence" is some incredibly positive spin which makes me suspicious of the claims. If these other chips are so good, wouldn't you go a…
Software. There's tremendous inertia in apps which is what gave x86 an effective monopoly in the 90'es, even when superior options were available (hello Alpha). Today the situation is actually better and with RISC-V having the same memory model as Arm, porting from an Arm version is way easier (Neon code not withstanding) but it's obviously way less attractive than running running existing code.
So QWERTY keyboards all over again, basically.
Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips
#38The 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…
Let's be real, the Chinese have been stealing technology right and left for years. Losses number between $225 and $600 billion per year [0]. One in five companies has had its technology stolen [1]. They will just steal the tech. Or maybe they'll decide it's easier to work with AMD (they're already doing it on the CPU side [2]). This is not popular to say, but it is accurate and my statements are sourced. Feel free to…
I'm surprised that it's only 1 in 5 companies. Based on prior client experiences with Chinese contractors, I would have expected it to be 5 of 5 foreign companies doing business in China.
Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
GPUs have sort of plateaued except for the raytracing component. There are quite a few vendors, Mali from ARM, Adreno from Qualcomm, PowerVR from Imagination, NVIDIA's GeForce, AMD's Radeon, Intel's integrated stuff, and then there is a few more smaller players (what Matrox, Broadcom, etc.) I think there is room for an open source straightforward GPU based on the standard principles. Although maybe there is patent li…
> GPUs have sort of plateaued except for the raytracing component What? As far as I understood it, CPUs had plateaued outside of efficiencies, GPU power still follows Moore's. Generational benchmarks show big leaps in every new arch on userbenchmark, whereas CPUs from 7 or 8 years ago are only marginally slower (SC) than modern ones.
>Generational benchmarks show big leaps in every new arch on userbenchmark,
That is because GPU scales very well with Transistor count, throw in more transistor and memory bandwidth and you are good. On the CPU you could have doubled the transistor budget and get marginal improvement in IPC.
Re: Huawei Seeks Independence from the US with RISC-V and Ascend Chips
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's be real, the Chinese have been stealing technology right and left for years. Losses number between $225 and $600 billion per year [0]. One in five companies has had its technology stolen [1]. They will just steal the tech. Or maybe they'll decide it's easier to work with AMD (they're already doing it on the CPU side [2]). This is not popular to say, but it is accurate and my statements are sourced. Feel free to…
I'm surprised that it's only 1 in 5 companies. Based on prior client experiences with Chinese contractors, I would have expected it to be 5 of 5 foreign companies doing business in China.
I would assume that it's due to a limited number of companies having useful IP to steal. I have had similar experience with several companies, and hear similar stats from those who work with other companies, but that is anecdotal. I would also hazard a guess that many companies don't want to admit it, even if it does happen.