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I'd really like to jump on the RISC-V bandwagon. Does anyone have any recommendations for hardware that would be .. somewhat .. future-proof for hacking/experi

by mmjaa 9y ago

I'd really like to jump on the RISC-V bandwagon. Does anyone have any recommendations for hardware that would be .. somewhat .. future-proof for hacking/experimenting on this platform? I'd love to have a board or two akin to the rPi-Zero in form-factor, if such a thing were available ..

kbeckmann 9y ago
As far as I know, only the Freedom E310[1] chip is available for purchase by normal consumers. It's a microcontroller and only has 16kB of RAM so it's probably not really what you are looking for. But if you are still interested in it, you can pick up a HiFive1 devkit at crowdsupply[2] and possibly elsewhere. There's also the cheaper LoFive[3] which is a very bare breakout board for this chip, but I'm not sure if it's possible to buy it anymore. [1] https://www.sifive.com/products/freedom-e310/ https://www.sifive.com/products/freedom-e310/ [2] https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive1/ https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive1/ [3] https://groupgets.com/campaigns/353-lofive-risc-v https://groupgets.com/campaigns/353-lofive-risc-v
vhodges 9y ago
Nothing available yet capable of running Linux. SiFive has a SOC coming soon (https://www.sifive.com/products/risc-v-core-ip/u54-mc/ https://www.sifive.com/products/risc-v-core-ip/u54-mc/) that will be. Speculation is that dev boards will be available 1st quarter 2018. My guess is that they'll announce (likely on crowdsupply) around Christmas for delivery sometime next yet... but just a guess. The other option that is coming is from lowrisc.org, but they are a small team so it's taking a long time and have no idea when they might be thinking of delivering hardware.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
srcmap 9y ago
Also, is there any (low cost?) FPGA board that is capable of running RISC-V + Linux? That would be a fun thing to to do.
- kbeckmann 9y ago
  Found this blog with someone who bought an FPGA devkit[1] for £260 and managed to boot Linux on it[2]. [1] https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/risc-v-on-an-fpga-pt-1/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/risc-v-on-an-fpga-pt-1... [2] https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/risc-v-on-an-fpga-pt-4/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/risc-v-on-an-fpga-pt-4...
- phkahler 9y ago
  That's been going on for some time. This is probably not the best link, but it's one of the conversations: https://forums.sifive.com/t/building-linux-for-custom-u500/208/8 https://forums.sifive.com/t/building-linux-for-custom-u500/2... I assumed SiFive was waiting for the privileged instructions to be finalized before making real chips. But people have been running Linux on their stuff on FPGA for a while now.
ajross 9y ago
There are actually no hardware processors capable of running the code that was merged. So far all the RISC-V parts in the market are MMU-less microcontroller devices.

by mmjaa 9y ago

kbeckmann 9y ago

As far as I know, only the Freedom E310[1] chip is available for purchase by normal consumers. It's a microcontroller and only has 16kB of RAM so it's probably not really what you are looking for. But if you are still interested in it, you can pick up a HiFive1 devkit at crowdsupply[2] and possibly elsewhere. There's also the cheaper LoFive[3] which is a very bare breakout board for this chip, but I'm not sure if it's possible to buy it anymore. [1] https://www.sifive.com/products/freedom-e310/ https://www.sifive.com/products/freedom-e310/ [2] https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive1/ https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive1/ [3] https://groupgets.com/campaigns/353-lofive-risc-v https://groupgets.com/campaigns/353-lofive-risc-v

vhodges 9y ago

Nothing available yet capable of running Linux. SiFive has a SOC coming soon (https://www.sifive.com/products/risc-v-core-ip/u54-mc/ https://www.sifive.com/products/risc-v-core-ip/u54-mc/) that will be. Speculation is that dev boards will be available 1st quarter 2018. My guess is that they'll announce (likely on crowdsupply) around Christmas for delivery sometime next yet... but just a guess. The other option that is coming is from lowrisc.org, but they are a small team so it's taking a long time and have no idea when they might be thinking of delivering hardware.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

srcmap 9y ago

Also, is there any (low cost?) FPGA board that is capable of running RISC-V + Linux? That would be a fun thing to to do.

kbeckmann 9y ago
Found this blog with someone who bought an FPGA devkit[1] for £260 and managed to boot Linux on it[2]. [1] https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/risc-v-on-an-fpga-pt-1/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/risc-v-on-an-fpga-pt-1... [2] https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/risc-v-on-an-fpga-pt-4/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/risc-v-on-an-fpga-pt-4...
phkahler 9y ago
That's been going on for some time. This is probably not the best link, but it's one of the conversations: https://forums.sifive.com/t/building-linux-for-custom-u500/208/8 https://forums.sifive.com/t/building-linux-for-custom-u500/2... I assumed SiFive was waiting for the privileged instructions to be finalized before making real chips. But people have been running Linux on their stuff on FPGA for a while now.

ajross 9y ago

There are actually no hardware processors capable of running the code that was merged. So far all the RISC-V parts in the market are MMU-less microcontroller devices.