5 ms·

I went to a local RISC-V meetup last night, and it seems like something interesting to play with. Does anyone know when actual chips might become affordable? Th

I went to a local RISC-V meetup last night, and it seems like something interesting to play with. Does anyone know when actual chips might become affordable? The only board I could find available at the moment is the HiFive Unleashed, which is $999.

snazz 8y ago
You can buy affordable FPGA boards that can be configured with open-source RISC-V chip designs, like the Arty A7-35T[0] for $119. There are a number of other FPGA development boards that would run RISC-V at a much lower cost than $999. [0]: https://store.digilentinc.com/arty-a7-artix-7-fpga-development-board-for-makers-and-hobbyists/ https://store.digilentinc.com/arty-a7-artix-7-fpga-developme...
- rjsw 8y ago
  A Parallella should be faster than that Arty as it has 32-bit wide DRAM, the Arty only has 16-bit.
geokon 8y ago
There are a handful of micros. The lowfive and a few coming from China Here is an AI chip: https://hackaday.com/2018/10/08/new-part-day-the-risc-v-chip-with-built-in-neural-networks/ https://hackaday.com/2018/10/08/new-part-day-the-risc-v-chip... It's an interesting proposition b/c they using RISC for the core, but the APUs are custom - so they can create some lock-in there for themselves (without lock in it'll just be a race to the bottom with razor thin margins) And here is RISC-on-an-FPGA in a nice package. It's very Chinese hobbyist oriented https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/09/04/licheetang-anlogic-eg4s20-fpga-board-targets-risc-v-development/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/09/04/licheetang-anlogic-e... Both those projects are by Zepan. That guy is a machine But I'm not quite sure what's holding up general purpose CPUs (even just something crappy/good-enough).. The way I understand it CPUs aren't just beefy microcontrollers and they require some extra onchip hardware, but no one has done that yet for some reason.. Maybe someone knows better :)
- nickik 8y ago
  lowRisc and SiFive, there is no lowfive
  - metafex 8y ago
    There's the HiFive from SiFive though. Which is the Arduino form-factor board with their Freedom E310 core.
  - kam 8y ago
    It's a breakout board for the SiFive E310 https://github.com/mwelling/lofive https://github.com/mwelling/lofive
- als0 8y ago
  > CPUs aren't just beefy microcontrollers and they require some extra onchip hardware, but no one has done that yet for some reason For example, Graphics, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, modem, are all heavily encumbered with patents. Very complex subsystems. Even components that have expired patents or no patents, such as an MMU, are non-trivial to create and take time. I suspect it'll take time before FOSS implementations appear.
  - wbl 8y ago
    Graphics can sit on a PCI bus. Same with Wi-Fi. The MMU is probably a blocker.
- _chris_ 8y ago
  > But I'm not quite sure what's holding up general purpose CPUs (even just something crappy/good-enough).. The way I understand it CPUs aren't just beefy microcontrollers and they require some extra onchip hardware, but no one has done that yet for some reason.. Maybe someone knows better :) There's general-purpose RISC-V CPU RTL lying around, and it's not too difficult to license the necessary peripherals, but it costs money to put together a board and fabricate at volume if you want to hit a Raspberry Pi/hobbyist price point. Unfortunately, it takes time and you need a market to justify the effort. But eventually it'll happen.
tyingq 8y ago
The closest seem to be Lowrisc.org and the Incore Shakti chip. LowRisc seems behind on their original timeline plan. Shakti booted Linux in August. Can't tell if they just want to make chips though...LowRisc is going to make full RPI type boards.
yiyus 8y ago
It looks like Richard Miller, author of the article and living UNIX legend, is using a verilog implementation by Clifford Wolf [1] in this FPGA board [2]. [1] https://github.com/cliffordwolf/picorv32 https://github.com/cliffordwolf/picorv32 [2] https://www.tindie.com/products/Folknology/blackice-ii/ https://www.tindie.com/products/Folknology/blackice-ii/
nickik 8y ago
If you want actual hardware you can get: - Kendryte KD233 - HiFive1 (https://www.sifive.com/boards https://www.sifive.com/boards) - GAPUINO GAP8 (https://greenwaves-technologies.com/product/gapduino/ https://greenwaves-technologies.com/product/gapduino/) - HiFive Unleashed (https://www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-unleashed https://www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-unleashed) Those are the only ones that exist commercially as far as I know.

snazz 8y ago

You can buy affordable FPGA boards that can be configured with open-source RISC-V chip designs, like the Arty A7-35T[0] for $119. There are a number of other FPGA development boards that would run RISC-V at a much lower cost than $999. [0]: https://store.digilentinc.com/arty-a7-artix-7-fpga-development-board-for-makers-and-hobbyists/ https://store.digilentinc.com/arty-a7-artix-7-fpga-developme...

rjsw 8y ago
A Parallella should be faster than that Arty as it has 32-bit wide DRAM, the Arty only has 16-bit.

geokon 8y ago

There are a handful of micros. The lowfive and a few coming from China Here is an AI chip: https://hackaday.com/2018/10/08/new-part-day-the-risc-v-chip-with-built-in-neural-networks/ https://hackaday.com/2018/10/08/new-part-day-the-risc-v-chip... It's an interesting proposition b/c they using RISC for the core, but the APUs are custom - so they can create some lock-in there for themselves (without lock in it'll just be a race to the bottom with razor thin margins) And here is RISC-on-an-FPGA in a nice package. It's very Chinese hobbyist oriented https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/09/04/licheetang-anlogic-eg4s20-fpga-board-targets-risc-v-development/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/09/04/licheetang-anlogic-e... Both those projects are by Zepan. That guy is a machine But I'm not quite sure what's holding up general purpose CPUs (even just something crappy/good-enough).. The way I understand it CPUs aren't just beefy microcontrollers and they require some extra onchip hardware, but no one has done that yet for some reason.. Maybe someone knows better :)

nickik 8y ago
lowRisc and SiFive, there is no lowfive
- metafex 8y ago
  There's the HiFive from SiFive though. Which is the Arduino form-factor board with their Freedom E310 core.
- kam 8y ago
  It's a breakout board for the SiFive E310 https://github.com/mwelling/lofive https://github.com/mwelling/lofive
als0 8y ago
> CPUs aren't just beefy microcontrollers and they require some extra onchip hardware, but no one has done that yet for some reason For example, Graphics, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, modem, are all heavily encumbered with patents. Very complex subsystems. Even components that have expired patents or no patents, such as an MMU, are non-trivial to create and take time. I suspect it'll take time before FOSS implementations appear.
- wbl 8y ago
  Graphics can sit on a PCI bus. Same with Wi-Fi. The MMU is probably a blocker.
_chris_ 8y ago
> But I'm not quite sure what's holding up general purpose CPUs (even just something crappy/good-enough).. The way I understand it CPUs aren't just beefy microcontrollers and they require some extra onchip hardware, but no one has done that yet for some reason.. Maybe someone knows better :) There's general-purpose RISC-V CPU RTL lying around, and it's not too difficult to license the necessary peripherals, but it costs money to put together a board and fabricate at volume if you want to hit a Raspberry Pi/hobbyist price point. Unfortunately, it takes time and you need a market to justify the effort. But eventually it'll happen.

tyingq 8y ago

The closest seem to be Lowrisc.org and the Incore Shakti chip. LowRisc seems behind on their original timeline plan. Shakti booted Linux in August. Can't tell if they just want to make chips though...LowRisc is going to make full RPI type boards.

yiyus 8y ago

It looks like Richard Miller, author of the article and living UNIX legend, is using a verilog implementation by Clifford Wolf [1] in this FPGA board [2]. [1] https://github.com/cliffordwolf/picorv32 https://github.com/cliffordwolf/picorv32 [2] https://www.tindie.com/products/Folknology/blackice-ii/ https://www.tindie.com/products/Folknology/blackice-ii/

nickik 8y ago

If you want actual hardware you can get: - Kendryte KD233 - HiFive1 (https://www.sifive.com/boards https://www.sifive.com/boards) - GAPUINO GAP8 (https://greenwaves-technologies.com/product/gapduino/ https://greenwaves-technologies.com/product/gapduino/) - HiFive Unleashed (https://www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-unleashed https://www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-unleashed) Those are the only ones that exist commercially as far as I know.