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SiFive Introduces 7 Series RISC-V Cores with E7, S7 and the U7 Series

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Re: SiFive Introduces 7 Series RISC-V Cores with E7, S7 and the U7 Series

#21

Post by mcbits »

gnulinux wrote: post #4

When can I buy an affordable, complete RISC-V computer? I've been long planning to cook my own with FPGA but it seems like soon we'll start getting affordable RISC-V CPUs with other utility support?

They sell an Arduino-class device (technically a computer) called the HiFive1 for $59, and there was a crowdfunded SBC called the HiFive Unleashed that was a limited run for $999. Both are about 5-10x too expensive for poor me, but I'm keeping my hopes up for a commodity-priced SBC to replace my laptop when it finally kicks the bucket.

Re: SiFive Introduces 7 Series RISC-V Cores with E7, S7 and the U7 Series

#22

Post by mrweasel »

zik wrote: post #11
gnulinux wrote: post #4

When can I buy an affordable, complete RISC-V computer? I've been long planning to cook my own with FPGA but it seems like soon we'll start getting affordable RISC-V CPUs with other utility support?

There are none yet. RISC-V is likely to appear in embedded and mobile devices before a full desktop machine is competitive with Intel processors.

It's most likely going to be like with ARM and be embedded only, sadly. There's a large number of us, not large enough though, that want a standard ATX motherboard, with PCI-Express and an ARM, RISC-V or PowerPC processor (well an affordable PowerPC).

Re: SiFive Introduces 7 Series RISC-V Cores with E7, S7 and the U7 Series

#23

Post by masklinn »

Posibyte wrote: post #20
PinkMilkshake wrote: post #10

I've only had a passing interest in learning assembly. It's always been in the "maybe one day" category. But after learning about how small the RISC-V instruction set is (less than 50 apparently, but I can't find a citation for that anywhere), I'm far more motivated to get into it.

I recommend the 6502[1] if you're just starting. What you learn applies almost everywhere, and it's very much a what-you-write-is-what-happens sort of processor. No branch prediction, no caches, no fancy features. Its op-set is very small and highly expressive. They still make them, in fact. That said, whether you choose to start with it or RISC-V, from personal experience SiFive's implementations are phenomenal. I u…

If you just want to dip your hand in, chip8 is also a good starting point (if even less useful than 6502): where 6502 has about 80 actual opcodes acrosss ~50 mnemonics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6502#Assembly_l...) chip8 has 35 opcodes across 19 mnemonics (ADD, AND, CALL, CLS, DRW, JP, LD, OR, RET, RND, SE, SHL, SHR, SKNP, SKP, SNE, SUB, SUBN, XOR).

Re: SiFive Introduces 7 Series RISC-V Cores with E7, S7 and the U7 Series

#24

Post by snvzz »

risky_v wrote: post #18
gnulinux wrote: post #4

When can I buy an affordable, complete RISC-V computer? I've been long planning to cook my own with FPGA but it seems like soon we'll start getting affordable RISC-V CPUs with other utility support?

Some progress reported a few months back https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17642872

Unfortunately with RV64G, not RV64GC (which is targeted by Linux distributions and the BSDs).

Something they can fix, but this iteration's going to be not very convenient because of that.

Re: SiFive Introduces 7 Series RISC-V Cores with E7, S7 and the U7 Series

#25

Post by snvzz »

trhway wrote: post #15
PinkMilkshake wrote: post #10

I've only had a passing interest in learning assembly. It's always been in the "maybe one day" category. But after learning about how small the RISC-V instruction set is (less than 50 apparently, but I can't find a citation for that anywhere), I'm far more motivated to get into it.

>But after learning about how small the RISC-V instruction set is (less than 50 apparently, but I can't find a citation for that anywhere), I'm far more motivated to get into it. from the times when x86 wasn't that big: http://pastraiser.com/cpu/i8080/i8080_opcodes.html 30 years ago we were typing the hex codes of those commands straight into the Forth words bodies using the mental copy of that table (as you see it h…

Or the beautiful 68000.

http://goldencrystal.free.fr/M68kOpcodes-v2.3.pdf

Re: SiFive Introduces 7 Series RISC-V Cores with E7, S7 and the U7 Series

#26

Post by makomk »

gnulinux wrote: post #4

When can I buy an affordable, complete RISC-V computer? I've been long planning to cook my own with FPGA but it seems like soon we'll start getting affordable RISC-V CPUs with other utility support?

I'm not sure how useful one of those would really be, to be honest. There's not really much benefit in terms of openness - even though the architecture is open, these actual implementations are entirely proprietary with license agreements that forbid reverse-engineering. Plus it's just not as widely supported as ARM on the software side right now.

Re: SiFive Introduces 7 Series RISC-V Cores with E7, S7 and the U7 Series

#27

Post by pjc50 »

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #10

I've only had a passing interest in learning assembly. It's always been in the "maybe one day" category. But after learning about how small the RISC-V instruction set is (less than 50 apparently, but I can't find a citation for that anywhere), I'm far more motivated to get into it.

I'm not sure that's a useful metric; in almost all architectures there's a "core" set which gets used the vast majority of the time in most programs, plus an increasing number of extensions for very specific purposes. You could start today on ARM with the top 20 instructions and get quite a long way.

Re: SiFive Introduces 7 Series RISC-V Cores with E7, S7 and the U7 Series

#28

Post by tyingq »

gnulinux wrote: post #4

When can I buy an affordable, complete RISC-V computer? I've been long planning to cook my own with FPGA but it seems like soon we'll start getting affordable RISC-V CPUs with other utility support?

The LowRisc project seems to have the mission you're looking for:

"What are the goals of the project? To create a fully open SoC and low-cost development board and to support the open-source hardware community. This will involve volume silicon manufacture..."

They have 2 folks with prior experience on the Rpi team. But, it's hard to tell when they might have something ready. http://lowrisc.org

Re: SiFive Introduces 7 Series RISC-V Cores with E7, S7 and the U7 Series

#29

Post by Tor3 »

makomk wrote: post #26
gnulinux wrote: post #4

When can I buy an affordable, complete RISC-V computer? I've been long planning to cook my own with FPGA but it seems like soon we'll start getting affordable RISC-V CPUs with other utility support?

I'm not sure how useful one of those would really be, to be honest. There's not really much benefit in terms of openness - even though the architecture is open, these actual implementations are entirely proprietary with license agreements that forbid reverse-engineering. Plus it's just not as widely supported as ARM on the software side right now.

The 'openess' does nothing for end-users, but it makes a difference for chip vendors - they don't have to pay license fees, unlike for ARM.

Re: SiFive Introduces 7 Series RISC-V Cores with E7, S7 and the U7 Series

#30

Post by vhodges »

mrweasel wrote: post #22
zik wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are none yet. RISC-V is likely to appear in embedded and mobile devices before a full desktop machine is competitive with Intel processors.

It's most likely going to be like with ARM and be embedded only, sadly. There's a large number of us, not large enough though, that want a standard ATX motherboard, with PCI-Express and an ARM, RISC-V or PowerPC processor (well an affordable PowerPC).

(A more) affordable PPC option is coming (though no pricing yet): https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Blackbird (mATX)
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