Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt that matters considering China stole a complete copy of ARM (the company) and has already released new IP under their rebranded name.
Arm China majority shareholders announce the company’s corporate governance issue has been resolved https://www.arm.com/company/news/2022/04/arm-china-majority-...
Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V
61–70 of 129 posts
Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V
#62I suspect most of RISC-V development is more towards moving away from western controlled ISA's that can be sanctioned for any reason. Points about avoid shortages from any fab being allowed to fabricate RISC-V CPUs is just the "cherry on top".
If you're manufacturing chips under sanctions your most difficult finds are going to be the manufacturing equipment, expertise, and raw materials to produce the chips. It's not going to be an ISA - there have been a litany of "open" ISAs and well-documented industry standard ones you're likely going to do unlicensed copies of. Secondary challenge here, going beyond the ISA, are pre-defined blocks of functionality alr…
Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V
#63Very nice to see RISC-V growing like that and being in the area of interest by big names such as Google and Intel. Open solutions are critical for risk management but I wonder if desktop/server RISC-V processors are also planned.
There are server specs but embedded was the initial priority. I don't think there's been a lot of attention paid to desktop which isn't a super interesting area in general although it could of course piggyback on server work from a spec perspective if anyone were actually interested in giving it a go.
Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are server specs but embedded was the initial priority. I don't think there's been a lot of attention paid to desktop which isn't a super interesting area in general although it could of course piggyback on server work from a spec perspective if anyone were actually interested in giving it a go.
Without a company like Apple to put in the resources and engineering effort for something like Rosetta, there's really going to be next to no demand for a RISC-V based desktop computer outside of specialized development and maybe competing with ARM-based Chromebook-likes. Desktop systems are absolutely beholden to their platform and architecture because that's what determines which apps you can run. Any serious use o…
Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are server specs but embedded was the initial priority. I don't think there's been a lot of attention paid to desktop which isn't a super interesting area in general although it could of course piggyback on server work from a spec perspective if anyone were actually interested in giving it a go.
Without a company like Apple to put in the resources and engineering effort for something like Rosetta, there's really going to be next to no demand for a RISC-V based desktop computer outside of specialized development and maybe competing with ARM-based Chromebook-likes. Desktop systems are absolutely beholden to their platform and architecture because that's what determines which apps you can run. Any serious use o…
Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are server specs but embedded was the initial priority. I don't think there's been a lot of attention paid to desktop which isn't a super interesting area in general although it could of course piggyback on server work from a spec perspective if anyone were actually interested in giving it a go.
What's the difference between desktop and embedded? I reverse-engineered some medical device. It houses tiny CPU and 3" touch screen. Inside it runs Linux with X Window, Chromium, Electron and software written with JS. It's definitely embedded device, it's tiny, works from accumulator, hand-held. But its software stack is not any different from desktop.
Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V
#67Very nice to see RISC-V growing like that and being in the area of interest by big names such as Google and Intel. Open solutions are critical for risk management but I wonder if desktop/server RISC-V processors are also planned.
The flexibility that makes RISC-V so compelling in embedded roles (what if I want 64 bit address but don't need hardware floating point?) makes it a harder target for the sort of workloads that you'd usually run on a server or desktop. If I were going to create an open high performance core to challenge x86 and ARM's A series cores I'd probably use PowerPC as a base rather than RISC-V. But I do think that RISC-V has…
Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
The flexibility that makes RISC-V so compelling in embedded roles (what if I want 64 bit address but don't need hardware floating point?) makes it a harder target for the sort of workloads that you'd usually run on a server or desktop. If I were going to create an open high performance core to challenge x86 and ARM's A series cores I'd probably use PowerPC as a base rather than RISC-V. But I do think that RISC-V has…
What are the trade-offs of PowerPC vs RISC-V?
Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's a good idea but then companies doing that wouldn't be able to sell their products as new, and we probably need a cultural shift before widespread adoption of refurbished and used products is doable. Additionally, and not knowing much about the hardware side of things, if I put myself in the shoes of a manufacturer, it seems challenging to ship a product where the expected lifetime of some of its compon…
Those are fair points. With the amount of e-waste currently in existence I'd think we would want to address those sooner rather than later, but it's easy for everyone to just kick the can down the road.
Re: Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt that matters considering China stole a complete copy of ARM (the company) and has already released new IP under their rebranded name.
The stolen architectures cannot be legitimately sold outside of China, due to patents held by ARM ltd. RISC-V avoids these headaches.