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I wonder what Google, HP, and Oracle are planning to do with RISC-V. Will RISC-V-based chips be able to compete with Intel in the server market? Incidentally,

I wonder what Google, HP, and Oracle are planning to do with RISC-V. Will RISC-V-based chips be able to compete with Intel in the server market? Incidentally, I think the first consumer devices to adopt RISC-V will be home wireless routers, because the stock firmwares for those are closed, so they'll just need to be recompiled with a new toolchain. And those devices don't need a GPU.

zhemao 11y ago
We do expect embedded systems to be the main use of RISC-V processors at the outset. In fact, I believe there is a consumer product out now - some kind of camera - which uses a RISC-V processor. I don't think we'll be able to compete with Intel's x86 chips for a while. Mostly because Intel's silicon processes are more advanced than those offered by other foundries.
- aurhum 11y ago
  The AXIOM, a 4K camera uses a RISC-V http://riscv.org/workshop-jan2016.html http://riscv.org/workshop-jan2016.html
asb 11y ago
I agree that the easiest entry-point for RISC-V is in systems which run embedded firmware of some sort (even if it's a builroot Linux rootfs). Even before you get to that, there are loads of companies that still have their own home-grown instruction sets used for auxilliary functions on a larger core. Think peripherals on an SoC, SSD controllers and so on.
mtgx 11y ago
Well, it may be easier to offer an open source RISC-V processor in products, but it's certainly not necessary. From Wikipedia: > The RISC-V authors aim to provide several freely available CPU designs, under a BSD license. This license allows derivative works such as RISC-V chip designs to be either open and free like RISC-V itself, or closed and proprietary, (unlike the available OpenRISC cores, which under the GPL, requires that all derivative works also be open and free). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V So if it's not GPL, such as OpenRISC, then it's not guaranteed to be fully open source. You could still have 99% of the chip as open source and the other 1% as the proprietary backdoor.
- detaro 11y ago
  Is it in any way established what GPL means for hardware based on GPL-ed HDL code?
  - duskwuff 11y ago
    It's not even clear what certain parts of the GPL mean when applied to interpreted languages, like Javascript. Applying the GPL to more exotic languages like HDLs is a legal black hole; I don't think even the FSF is entirely sure how that would play out. (Which, of course, means that no sane manufacturer would touch GPLed hardware designs.)

zhemao 11y ago

We do expect embedded systems to be the main use of RISC-V processors at the outset. In fact, I believe there is a consumer product out now - some kind of camera - which uses a RISC-V processor. I don't think we'll be able to compete with Intel's x86 chips for a while. Mostly because Intel's silicon processes are more advanced than those offered by other foundries.

aurhum 11y ago
The AXIOM, a 4K camera uses a RISC-V http://riscv.org/workshop-jan2016.html http://riscv.org/workshop-jan2016.html

asb 11y ago

I agree that the easiest entry-point for RISC-V is in systems which run embedded firmware of some sort (even if it's a builroot Linux rootfs). Even before you get to that, there are loads of companies that still have their own home-grown instruction sets used for auxilliary functions on a larger core. Think peripherals on an SoC, SSD controllers and so on.

mtgx 11y ago

Well, it may be easier to offer an open source RISC-V processor in products, but it's certainly not necessary. From Wikipedia: > The RISC-V authors aim to provide several freely available CPU designs, under a BSD license. This license allows derivative works such as RISC-V chip designs to be either open and free like RISC-V itself, or closed and proprietary, (unlike the available OpenRISC cores, which under the GPL, requires that all derivative works also be open and free). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V So if it's not GPL, such as OpenRISC, then it's not guaranteed to be fully open source. You could still have 99% of the chip as open source and the other 1% as the proprietary backdoor.

detaro 11y ago
Is it in any way established what GPL means for hardware based on GPL-ed HDL code?
- duskwuff 11y ago
  It's not even clear what certain parts of the GPL mean when applied to interpreted languages, like Javascript. Applying the GPL to more exotic languages like HDLs is a legal black hole; I don't think even the FSF is entirely sure how that would play out. (Which, of course, means that no sane manufacturer would touch GPLed hardware designs.)