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Qualcomm starts a RISC-V joint venture

arstechnica.com

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Re: Qualcomm starts a RISC-V joint venture

#11

Post by nomilk »

crote wrote: post #10
Havoc wrote: post #5

> At first, the group will be focused on automotive uses Slightly ironic given how geohot has been ranting on stream non-stop for the last few days about how terrible it is to work with them for his comma.ai self-driving startup

I bet that is just a matter of multinationals not wanting to bother with tiny startups. Unless you are ordering hundreds of thousands of chips, they are not even going to respond to your emails. You just aren't worth their time, so they except you to stick to public documentation, buy their dev kit, and figure out out on your own. Want to use a part without public documentation? Tough luck!

I have no idea if it's a lot or not, but for reference, Comma's initial (trial) order was for 10k chips.

Re: Qualcomm starts a RISC-V joint venture

#12

Post by crote »

baq wrote: post #3

Not a word about uefi or any other kind of standardized booting. Not surprising given the use case list but still disappointing.

Uefi is pretty pointless when your device doesn't even run a full-blown operating system. In the embedded world your software knows exactly what hardware it is going to run on, so uefi is just a waste of time.

You only need something like uefi when you start using mostly hardware-independent software, like trying to run Linux on it. A lot of the chips these companies make are not even remotely close to that.

Re: Qualcomm starts a RISC-V joint venture

#13

Post by crote »

Dalewyn wrote: post #7
5ADBEEF wrote: post #2

Qualcomm, Nordic, NXP, Infineon, Bosch. Wonder what the value add for smaller companies is. Nordic is incorporating RISC-V cores into their new part but they have never done automotive certs before. also Qualcomm and Nordic partnering is like cats and dogs living together lol

x86 is locked down by Intel and AMD, and ARM demands tribute-- I mean license fees for ARM. That leaves only RISC-V for those who want to make their own processors without paying someone for the privilege. That's the value add.

You could always go for Xtensa, PIC/AVR, or 68k. Still plenty of those around - although ARM has rapidly been eating their lunch the last few years.

Re: Qualcomm starts a RISC-V joint venture

#14

Post by civilitty »

crote wrote: post #10
Havoc wrote: post #5

> At first, the group will be focused on automotive uses Slightly ironic given how geohot has been ranting on stream non-stop for the last few days about how terrible it is to work with them for his comma.ai self-driving startup

I bet that is just a matter of multinationals not wanting to bother with tiny startups. Unless you are ordering hundreds of thousands of chips, they are not even going to respond to your emails. You just aren't worth their time, so they except you to stick to public documentation, buy their dev kit, and figure out out on your own. Want to use a part without public documentation? Tough luck!

Qualcomm is especially awful to deal with. Even as a high volume customer getting anything from them (including chip errata!) was like pulling teeth.

Re: Qualcomm starts a RISC-V joint venture

#15

Post by pclmulqdq »

nomilk wrote: post #11
crote wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet that is just a matter of multinationals not wanting to bother with tiny startups. Unless you are ordering hundreds of thousands of chips, they are not even going to respond to your emails. You just aren't worth their time, so they except you to stick to public documentation, buy their dev kit, and figure out out on your own. Want to use a part without public documentation? Tough luck!

I have no idea if it's a lot or not, but for reference, Comma's initial (trial) order was for 10k chips.

That's very small for an automotive product, particularly when you don't have a much bigger follow-up order on your timeline. Around million units is the normal volume, and it's where companies like Qualcomm will start to talk to you.

Many companies are a lot more friendly to small customers, though.

Re: Qualcomm starts a RISC-V joint venture

#16

Post by pgeorgi »

xvilka wrote: post #9
baq wrote: post #3

Not a word about uefi or any other kind of standardized booting. Not surprising given the use case list but still disappointing.

UEFI is a bad choice for embedded. It has too much of the PC quirks, which is mostly irrelevant on ARM or RISC-V. They should have tried to create something new, without x86 cruft.

ARM: "This document defines the Boot and Runtime Services expected by an enterprise platform Operating System or hypervisor, for an SBSA-compliant Arm AArch64 server which follows the UEFI and ACPI specifications." (https://documentation-service.arm.com/static/5fb7e415d77dd80...)

Also "This document identifies the Arm and industry standard firmware interfaces applicable to the Arm 64-bit architecture. They include the PSCI, SMCCC, UEFI, ACPI, SMBIOS, and DT interfaces. Requirements that are based on these interfaces are specified. In addition, various recipes are created to accommodate the various operating systems and hypervisors." (https://documentation-service.arm.com/static/627a75d3148af93...)

Two out of three "recipes" are UEFI-based.

--

As for RISCV, they're embracing UEFI, too: https://riscv.org/announcements/2022/06/risc-v-announces-fir... Note that the announcement also refers to SBI, which is RISCV's poor-man's implementation of x86 SMM, quickly becoming a required component on the platform because OSes call into that.

Re: Qualcomm starts a RISC-V joint venture

#17

Post by gchadwick »

Would be great if they actually provided some details of what this joint venture actually aims to do. Is it developing CPUs and other IP? Will it produce actual chips? Perhaps it's just a way for the various companies to pool money and resources to develop RISC-V standards and ecosystem things (like conformance test suites) and maybe bits of IP?

The current info:

> aimed at advancing the adoption of RISC-V globally by enabling next-generation hardware development.

Doesn't tell you much!

Re: Qualcomm starts a RISC-V joint venture

#18

Post by aborsy »

Dalewyn wrote: post #7
5ADBEEF wrote: post #2

Qualcomm, Nordic, NXP, Infineon, Bosch. Wonder what the value add for smaller companies is. Nordic is incorporating RISC-V cores into their new part but they have never done automotive certs before. also Qualcomm and Nordic partnering is like cats and dogs living together lol

x86 is locked down by Intel and AMD, and ARM demands tribute-- I mean license fees for ARM. That leaves only RISC-V for those who want to make their own processors without paying someone for the privilege. That's the value add.

Once RISC-V gains market share, Intel and ARM will gradually react, lowering fees and opening their platforms proportionately, if needed. They will try to block the addition of value and market capture.

Re: Qualcomm starts a RISC-V joint venture

#19

Post by eunos »

aborsy wrote: post #18
Dalewyn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

x86 is locked down by Intel and AMD, and ARM demands tribute-- I mean license fees for ARM. That leaves only RISC-V for those who want to make their own processors without paying someone for the privilege. That's the value add.

Once RISC-V gains market share, Intel and ARM will gradually react, lowering fees and opening their platforms proportionately, if needed. They will try to block the addition of value and market capture.

In that case the main strength of RISC-V would be Chinese companies since it is theoretically sanction resistant.

Re: Qualcomm starts a RISC-V joint venture

#20

Post by aborsy »

civilitty wrote: post #14
crote wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet that is just a matter of multinationals not wanting to bother with tiny startups. Unless you are ordering hundreds of thousands of chips, they are not even going to respond to your emails. You just aren't worth their time, so they except you to stick to public documentation, buy their dev kit, and figure out out on your own. Want to use a part without public documentation? Tough luck!

Qualcomm is especially awful to deal with. Even as a high volume customer getting anything from them (including chip errata!) was like pulling teeth.

I hear Qualcomm also doesn’t pay its engineers well. I wonder if that’s true.

I certainly see Qualcomm engineers frequently leave and transition to FANG.

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