Live data from Hacker News

Amid chip shortages, companies bet on RISC-V

allaboutcircuits.com

1–10 of 129 posts

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

#4
post #2

Very 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

#5

I 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".

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.

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

#7

I 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".

No post body was provided.

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

#8
post #4
post #2

Very 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.

> super interesting area in general

deterred by the size of the profits for the winners, and the losses for those who do not compete in global markets.. yet I suggest there are few things more interesting than a personal, general purpose computer

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

#9

I 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".

I don’t know if sanctions are the reason, but moving away from foreign-controlled IP is certainly a thing. Chinese companies make STM32 clones (even fixing the errata in the original):

https://hackaday.com/2020/10/22/stm32-clones-the-good-the-ba...

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

#10
post #4
post #2

Very 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.

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 of a desktop (that is not programming) basically needs to use Windows or Mac OS (think CAD, professional video editing, etc.) so you're not just convincing hardware manufacturers: you're convincing thousands of app vendors, and that's just not going to happen.
Post reply on HN