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Linux Now Has Its First Open Source RISC-V Processor
- mkesper 9y agoMaybe should have linked here directly: https://www.sifive.com/products/coreplex-risc-v-ip/u54-mc/ https://www.sifive.com/products/coreplex-risc-v-ip/u54-mc/
- zokier 9y agoWhich was discussed few days ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15400217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15400217
- tyingq 9y agoWould be nice if there was a summary page describing what "open source processor" means in this context. I understand the ISA is open source, but SiFive does appear to be selling their IP. https://dev.sifive.com/coreplex-risc-v-ip/buy/ https://dev.sifive.com/coreplex-risc-v-ip/buy/ Royalty-free seems like a better term to describe what they are offering than "open source".
- leowoo91 9y agoIndeed, tl;dr SiFive sells cpu hardware design IP starting from 275k.
- gioele 9y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15400217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15400217 > I understand the ISA is open source, but SiFive does appear to be selling their IP. > > https://dev.sifive.com/coreplex-risc-v-ip/buy/ https://dev.sifive.com/coreplex-risc-v-ip/buy/ IIUC, SiFive is selling the ready-made "hard IP" [1], that means a compiled netlist that has been laid out at a slightly-abstract-but-almost-mask level. All this is manual work done on top of a netlist generated using the open-source Rocket chip generator [2,3] (SiFive people contribute to the upstream repository). Let's make a Wordpress analogy: SiFive is a big contributor to Wordpress and does most of the work upstream. At the same time they sell you preconfigured server images for your blog with Wordpress, nginx, varnish and postfix almost ready to go (few settings like IP, hostname and WP theme are still missing). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_intellectual_property_core#Hard_cores https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_intellectual_pro... [2] https://bar.eecs.berkeley.edu/projects/2014-rocket_chip.html https://bar.eecs.berkeley.edu/projects/2014-rocket_chip.html [3] https://github.com/freechipsproject/rocket-chip https://github.com/freechipsproject/rocket-chip
- kobeya 9y agoAlso they resell IP that is not theirs to give away, sadly. They are working on putting this chip in workstation class hardware, and when they do it will support PCIe, DDR4, USB3, etc. using off the shelf solutions they have licensed and integrated.
- jononor 9y agoI hope that over time they, or partners, or others, will develop open source alternatives to these IP blocks. So that we can gradually increase the level of openness
- Recurecur 9y agoWill this all be on a SOC? Are these plans public? It'd be great to get some single board computers on the market based on this architecture...
- kobeya 9y agohttps://www.sifive.com/products/freedom/ https://www.sifive.com/products/freedom/ Scroll down to "Freedom Unleashed".
- C0DEHERO 9y agoSeems like a good start though. LowRISC(http://www.lowrisc.org/ http://www.lowrisc.org/) is working on completely open processors, so if the adoption of RISC through SiFives' processors can improve support for RISC-V, the path towards open processor hardware should be a lot easier.
- laxd 9y agoA better written article: https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332398 https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332398
- 0xcde4c3db 9y agoMaybe I'm missing the relevant nexus between Linux, Open Source, and RISC-V, but I'm pretty sure BOOM [1] was already running Linux ~2 years ago. [1] https://github.com/ucb-bar/riscv-boom https://github.com/ucb-bar/riscv-boom
- _chris_ 9y agoBOOM is built on top of rocket-chip, both going back to 2011-2012 at Berkeley. The rocket-chip devs graduated Berkeley and started SiFive. SiFive still use, update, and commit back to the rocket-chip code base and have spent resources on verifying the rocket-chip code base and on integrating other industry IP into their branch of rocket-chip to fit their costumers' needs.
- tomcam 9y agoMad props to them. That's impressive and very community-minded.
- 0xbear 9y agoWhere can I buy a board with this?
- khankiseifn 9y agoUFC 216 Live Stream Free https://www.facebook.com/events/2144131802279726/ https://www.facebook.com/events/2144131802279726/
- dmitrygr 9y agoNot open. Hardware design is closed and only for sale as a netlist.