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Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V

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Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V

#121

Post by klelatti »

cestith wrote: post #120
brucehoult wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very first moment that there was a company called "ARM", in 1991, Apple owned 1/3 of it, the other partners being Acorn(who invented it) and VLSI Technology (who made the chips). Psion adopted a CPU Apple was using in, AND A COMPANY THEY OWNED developed for, the Newton and eMate, not the other way around. The ARM710 used in the Series 5 was the same as Apple used in the eMate.

Since that time, there was a point Apple was nearly bankrupt. Also since then they partnered on another new processor technology and put that one in the Mac. Then they got rid of that one and went to Intel chips. Only recently did they develop an ARM core they considered superior to the desktop competition. The whole Newton/eMate line were nice but were marketplace flops. Apple plays a long game, but saying they fund…

The long arc of history is towards performance per watt.

Apple knew that when it invested in Arm and chose Arm for Newton, for the iPod and the iPhone (note Apple has been selling Arm based products continuously since 1993 apart from 1998-2001).

It’s no accident that there is an Arm based CPU in the Mac now. Apple’s most important Mac is the MacBook and performance per watt is key. Until someone can offer an architecture that demonstrably does much better on this metric Apple will stick with Arm.

Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V

#122

Post by cestith »

klelatti wrote: post #121
cestith wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since that time, there was a point Apple was nearly bankrupt. Also since then they partnered on another new processor technology and put that one in the Mac. Then they got rid of that one and went to Intel chips. Only recently did they develop an ARM core they considered superior to the desktop competition. The whole Newton/eMate line were nice but were marketplace flops. Apple plays a long game, but saying they fund…

The long arc of history is towards performance per watt. Apple knew that when it invested in Arm and chose Arm for Newton, for the iPod and the iPhone (note Apple has been selling Arm based products continuously since 1993 apart from 1998-2001). It’s no accident that there is an Arm based CPU in the Mac now. Apple’s most important Mac is the MacBook and performance per watt is key. Until someone can offer an architec…

The performance per watt point is a more than fair argument. It also cuts both ways. If Apple decides ARM is still the performance per watt leader in 20 years, there's a good chance they'll still be using it. If any other processor tech reaches a better spot, they have the expertise and the semi-closed ecosystem to switch processors quicker than pretty much anyone else in most of the spaces into which they sell. It's something they've not only done multiple times, but done well and are known for doing well.

Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V

#123

Post by crote »

giantrobot wrote: post #87
crote wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends. First of all, we aren't really talking about motherboards or CPUs here. It is embedded electronics, not desktop computing. They are highly specialized application-specific electronics, which require a lot of engineering time to design, validate, and certify. It is nothing at all like the computer ecosystem, where you can just swap in a different motherboard. Boards are designed to use very specific chips,…

> Electronics can often be repaired, but we throw them away instead. A skilled technician replacing a 2¢ part on a $10 board costs more than a new $10 board. Just disassembling that board to recycle parts off of it will cost more than the board originally cost to manufacture. You also run into the same argument against landfill airbag controllers. A factory that produces a million boards can have very good reliabilit…

Oh, absolutely! Which is why I explicitly specified "smartphone and laptop".

Replacing a $0.02 part on a $10 board doesn't make sense, but why aren't we replacing $0.02 parts on $500+ boards?

Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V

#124

Post by klelatti »

cestith wrote: post #122
klelatti wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The long arc of history is towards performance per watt. Apple knew that when it invested in Arm and chose Arm for Newton, for the iPod and the iPhone (note Apple has been selling Arm based products continuously since 1993 apart from 1998-2001). It’s no accident that there is an Arm based CPU in the Mac now. Apple’s most important Mac is the MacBook and performance per watt is key. Until someone can offer an architec…

The performance per watt point is a more than fair argument. It also cuts both ways. If Apple decides ARM is still the performance per watt leader in 20 years, there's a good chance they'll still be using it. If any other processor tech reaches a better spot, they have the expertise and the semi-closed ecosystem to switch processors quicker than pretty much anyone else in most of the spaces into which they sell. It's…

100%. Look what happened with GPUs and Imagination. Personally I think CPUs and ISA will become less important as more functions are passed to special purpose engines. Perhaps RISC-V extensions might be a trigger but I suspect Arm will offer Apple whatever they want to keep them (both on the ability to add new extensions and on price - if they are paying anything at all at the moment!)

Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V

#125

Post by yywwbbn »

brucehoult wrote: post #110
yywwbbn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not obvious that any RISC-V CPUs that might be able to compete with ARM/x86 will be free in the future. It would take a lot of money to design them, why would the company that does that just give it away for free?

https://github.com/MoonbaseOtago/vroom One-man project. It works, right now, at A76 levels. The aim is M1 level, and the bottlenecks to that are known and being addressed. There is NO WAY one person could do with with a complex ISA such as x86, ARM, or POWER.

> It works, right now, at A76 levels

That’s hard to believe. Are there any benchmarks?

Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V

#126

Post by giantrobot »

crote wrote: post #123
giantrobot wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electronics can often be repaired, but we throw them away instead. A skilled technician replacing a 2¢ part on a $10 board costs more than a new $10 board. Just disassembling that board to recycle parts off of it will cost more than the board originally cost to manufacture. You also run into the same argument against landfill airbag controllers. A factory that produces a million boards can have very good reliabilit…

Oh, absolutely! Which is why I explicitly specified "smartphone and laptop". Replacing a $0.02 part on a $10 board doesn't make sense, but why aren't we replacing $0.02 parts on $500+ boards?

Refurbishment already happens. If you drop you get a replacement iPhone there's a decent chance it's a refurbished phone and not just a produced-for-replacement phone. Apple doesn't just toss a broken phone in a wood chipper. Same with most manufacturers. But that's the whole item and not logic boards and such.

A whole board needs to be pretty valuable to replace a 2¢ part because the technician's time is expensive. A 2¢ part that takes an hour to replace and test is $40-50 in skilled technician labor. That assumes you know exactly what 2¢ part needs to be replaced. Every technician hour adds a premium onto a refurbished board. Even a skilled technician can also screw up a repair so the rate of failed repairs also adds a premium. As does shipping and storage on the repaired units.

If you design boards to be more easily be repaired by a technician you're adding test leads and headers that cost money and take up space. In a phone that eats into your envelope budget meaning a smaller battery, a larger device, or tighter thermals. Anymore the same is true for laptops.

Even stuff like the Framework laptop doesn't envision people replacing surface mount ICs. They design around LRUs and have people send back old parts to refurbish or recycle.

There's not really any 2¢ parts for smartphones and laptops. There's $100.02 parts including all the expenses. So the part needs to be well over $100.02 in value to the manufacturer to make it worthwhile for them to refurbish it rather than just replace it and recycle the broken unit. A consumer isn't going to spend $100 to fix a $200 phone. They're better off spending $100 on a used replacement and sending the broken device to be recycled.

Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V

#127

Post by pdimitar »

worldofmatthew wrote: post #17
packetlost wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. It's not like sanctioned countries tend give a shit about copyright law, so how would sanctions prevent the use of something they already know how to make and use? I'm just not convinced this idea holds any water.

Not breaking copyright makes it easier for a eastern block to form around RISC-V fabrication.

Can you explain how? I'm not seeing it.

Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V

#128

Post by CameronNemo »

elcritch wrote: post #116
CameronNemo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons of hobbyists buy PINE hardware. All of their SoCs are Chinese (Rockchip, Allwinner). Hardkernel/Odroid stuff is a mix of Amlogic, Intel, and Rockchip. Outside the hobbyist space people do seem to be shunning Chinese SoCs AFAICT. Maybe no name TV boxes have rockchips, but other than that not much.

What non-Chinese options do hobbyist boards have? NXP chips seems almost impossible to get for the hobbyist market. I’m not sure why. Broadcom for the RPI’s we’re probably only possible because the creators had worked at Broadcom.

Amlogic and NXP mostly. Some mediatek boards are popping up, although they tend to be pricier.

Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V

#129

Post by snvzz »

SassyThrowaway wrote: post #119
snvzz wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do have access to ARM, sure. But they also have access to RISC-V, which is technically superior and free of the troubles associated with ARM.

What is superior about RISC V technically?

Code density is a good one.

L1$ is always starved, thus it is always good to fit more code in it.

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