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Wow, this is really great. Here at Berkeley Architecture Research and our spin-off company SiFive, we are working on finalizing version 1.9 of the privileged I

by zhemao 11y ago

Wow, this is really great. Here at Berkeley Architecture Research and our spin-off company SiFive, we are working on finalizing version 1.9 of the privileged ISA, which includes a lot of useful features for operating system implementers. This includes a standardized way of performing memory-mapped IO, debug port, and possibility of standalone boot.

nickpsecurity 11y ago
I say push as hard as possible to get actual boards out there. It's not going anywhere if nobody can use them. My suggestion is a clone of something like Pi that preferrably is compatible with its addon boards and such. Drop in replacement.
- zhemao 11y ago
  The lowRISC team at Cambridge are working on exactly that. However, there's a lot that needs to be finalized in the privileged ISA before it can be implemented in a board. Manufacturing a bunch of boards that require a non-standard toolchain wouldn't be very useful. That being said, you can already use a RISC-V processor by programming the RTL onto an FPGA board. The Zedboard and ZC706 are both officially supported. Though both of these boards are pretty expensive.
  - dasyatidprime 11y ago
    I more or less agree with both of your sentiments. I also suspect that if you can get anywhere near the tinkerer's market first, it becomes that much more likely that you can get another foothold, and that much more likely that the next thing to draw further interest will come from somewhere you can take advantage of.
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      That's exactly my point. The tinkerers are buying ARM systems to learn. So, if they learn ASM or ecosystems, it's going to be ARM's. They'll contribute back to ARM's, as well. Same with various microcontroller CPU's from 8-bit sector. So, needs to be something to work with for RISC-V just to get people scratching an itch coding up stuff for it.
  - progman 11y ago
    > The lowRISC team at Cambridge are working on exactly that. When (roughly estimated) can we expect the first actual boards? > The Zedboard and ZC706 are both officially supported. Though both of these boards are pretty expensive. How long will these boards be supported in later versions of Risc-V / ISA? It makes no sense to purchase an expensive board unless it can be used for a long time in upcoming RTL versions.

by zhemao 11y ago

nickpsecurity 11y ago

I say push as hard as possible to get actual boards out there. It's not going anywhere if nobody can use them. My suggestion is a clone of something like Pi that preferrably is compatible with its addon boards and such. Drop in replacement.

zhemao 11y ago
The lowRISC team at Cambridge are working on exactly that. However, there's a lot that needs to be finalized in the privileged ISA before it can be implemented in a board. Manufacturing a bunch of boards that require a non-standard toolchain wouldn't be very useful. That being said, you can already use a RISC-V processor by programming the RTL onto an FPGA board. The Zedboard and ZC706 are both officially supported. Though both of these boards are pretty expensive.
- dasyatidprime 11y ago
  I more or less agree with both of your sentiments. I also suspect that if you can get anywhere near the tinkerer's market first, it becomes that much more likely that you can get another foothold, and that much more likely that the next thing to draw further interest will come from somewhere you can take advantage of.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    That's exactly my point. The tinkerers are buying ARM systems to learn. So, if they learn ASM or ecosystems, it's going to be ARM's. They'll contribute back to ARM's, as well. Same with various microcontroller CPU's from 8-bit sector. So, needs to be something to work with for RISC-V just to get people scratching an itch coding up stuff for it.
- progman 11y ago
  > The lowRISC team at Cambridge are working on exactly that. When (roughly estimated) can we expect the first actual boards? > The Zedboard and ZC706 are both officially supported. Though both of these boards are pretty expensive. How long will these boards be supported in later versions of Risc-V / ISA? It makes no sense to purchase an expensive board unless it can be used for a long time in upcoming RTL versions.