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Intel embracing RISC-V would be a super-bold move. Given the support we can already see from the long list of RISC-V foundation members, it's bound to succeed.
by wyldfire 8y ago
Intel embracing RISC-V would be a super-bold move. Given the support we can already see from the long list of RISC-V foundation members, it's bound to succeed. In the next couple of years it will probably wrestle a few royalties away from ARM.
Beyond that, I think it will end up a legit heavy-duty apps processor for Android phones. It might start out on the mid/low-end phones, but manufacturers will absolutely love the idea of cutting out ARM from their BOM.
- rwmj 8y agoRISC-V is a much bigger problem for ARM than it is for Intel.
- PedroBatista 8y agoTherefore Intel getting into the RISC-V bandwagon and making it a freight train. But I suspect they won't do that.
- oblio 8y agoNokia/Symbian vs the Open Handset Alliance/Android, all over again?
- JohnSully 8y agoIf INTEL positioned itself as the main source for risc-v SOCs they could take away ARMs thunder.
- phkahler 8y agoIt would be very interesting to see and Intel or AMD designed RISC-V chip. I'm curious just how the ISA could do given similar resources brought to it. AMD should be in a better position to try because they were already planning to put ARM cores in their SoCs a few years ago. While that effort was dropped, I assume they still have a bunch of people around that know what the issues are and are ready to tackle them. Problem is ARM doesn't really have enough of those people to divert to alternatives.
- wyldfire 8y agoAMD or Intel could beat others to the punch and make a mobile SoC with RISC-V applications cores. They'd be the first to face the pain of porting Dalvik and NDK apps, but in the end they'd be way out ahead of the competition.
- phkahler 8y agoI've just been assuming Google would bring Dalvik to RISC-V. They're already porting Go and some other things. If they were to release Android for RISC-V it could be devastating to ARM. Not that I think Google cares about ARM, they've been enjoying competition among SoC designers due to ARMs reasonable licensing (that's a relative term of course).
- wyldfire 8y agoI meant the more abstract pain of introducing the new ISA and probably taking blame for problems with functionality and performance. Yes, Google would probably be the ones executing this task.
- imtringued 8y agoDoes Google force developers to upload an IR or bytecode for the NDK so that they can just recompile for a new architecture?
- phkahler 8y agoOops. I meant AMD doesn't have enough resources...
- cwyers 8y agoPowerPC had support from Apple, IBM and Motorola, plus it saw use in every video game console for a time period, it got a Windows port... it's still around and has its uses, but I don't know that you'd say it "succeeded." RISC-V may have support, but it's a hard market to break into.