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I was super tempted to buy the new learning development board they just released (which is actually tough to get in the US) but I actually haven't been able to

I was super tempted to buy the new learning development board they just released (which is actually tough to get in the US) but I actually haven't been able to figure out the benefits of the new SiFive processors compared to other traditional arms boards like a M0. Anyone here familiar with their boards that can provide some insight?

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
Do you mean besides that fact that it is a RISC-V? You know it is an open source architecture right?
- syntaxing 7y ago
  Yeah, I've been following SiFive for a while now, especially since their announced tool for custom "ASICs" and I know they're a huge driver for RISC-V. I just haven't seen their MCUs used much and curious what advantage they have over other competitors.
  - nickik 7y ago
    Their value proposition is basically that you can get to market with a costum chip cheaper then with anybody. They argue that their chips are lower energy then use less space. They are more configurable, and the RISC-V tooling is build around this as well. They do seem to quite a few costumers but their current growth is VC funded. There is nice stuff coming down the pipe as well, the RISC-V Vector extension and hopefully finally some linux boards. RISC-V SoC with FPGA is going to be a product. But hardware product cycles are just long and a takes a while.
- creato 7y ago
  Why should a random tinkerer trying to learn or get a basic job done with a microcontroller/CPU care whether the architecture is open source? It's still overwhelmingly difficult to do anything interesting with the fact that the architecture is open source.
  - loeg 7y ago
    Why should a random tinkerer choose ARM in particular?
    - creato 7y ago
      I didn't say anything about ARM specifically either. If I were a random tinkerer, I would choose based on these factors: * Ecosystem support (libraries, stack overflow, docs) * Quality of tools (compilers, debuggers) * Price/availability ARM is probably a good choice based on these factors, due to things like Raspberri Pi and Arduino (not all ARM but maybe the more popular ones are?). Open source hardware architecture doesn't really factor in anywhere here.
  - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
    Then to be honest it's a bit difficult to explain this to you in one post. Assuming you are even willing to consider any other perspective than you own egoistical current short-term position, then if you want you should read up on how this industry operates, on politics in it, on how processors and architectures are contracted and licensed, on what lobbying and political tools do big manufacturers like Intel use in order to get their advantage, about the history of the different architecture in general, on cybersecurity of the aspects of open/closed silicon, etc. etc. In short, yes RISC-V is a huge deal and if you care anything about software, hardware or computing in general you should be very happy and optimistic because of its existence. The team behind it is doing a tremendous monumental job of creating a free architecture, and they are still in the beginning of it.
  - nickik 7y ago
    There are a couple nice innovations happening in RISC-V. A lot of nice FPGU stuff where you can extend the architecture yourself and tooling that supports that. There are some cool RISC-V chips out that have different advantages, AI accelerators, lower power and so on. Lots of security stuff as well. I mean sure, all those things exist in the ARM world to some extend or another, but there is defiantly cool stuff being built.
  - imtringued 7y ago

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago

Do you mean besides that fact that it is a RISC-V? You know it is an open source architecture right?

syntaxing 7y ago
Yeah, I've been following SiFive for a while now, especially since their announced tool for custom "ASICs" and I know they're a huge driver for RISC-V. I just haven't seen their MCUs used much and curious what advantage they have over other competitors.
- nickik 7y ago
  Their value proposition is basically that you can get to market with a costum chip cheaper then with anybody. They argue that their chips are lower energy then use less space. They are more configurable, and the RISC-V tooling is build around this as well. They do seem to quite a few costumers but their current growth is VC funded. There is nice stuff coming down the pipe as well, the RISC-V Vector extension and hopefully finally some linux boards. RISC-V SoC with FPGA is going to be a product. But hardware product cycles are just long and a takes a while.
creato 7y ago
Why should a random tinkerer trying to learn or get a basic job done with a microcontroller/CPU care whether the architecture is open source? It's still overwhelmingly difficult to do anything interesting with the fact that the architecture is open source.
- loeg 7y ago
  Why should a random tinkerer choose ARM in particular?
  - creato 7y ago
    I didn't say anything about ARM specifically either. If I were a random tinkerer, I would choose based on these factors: * Ecosystem support (libraries, stack overflow, docs) * Quality of tools (compilers, debuggers) * Price/availability ARM is probably a good choice based on these factors, due to things like Raspberri Pi and Arduino (not all ARM but maybe the more popular ones are?). Open source hardware architecture doesn't really factor in anywhere here.
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  Then to be honest it's a bit difficult to explain this to you in one post. Assuming you are even willing to consider any other perspective than you own egoistical current short-term position, then if you want you should read up on how this industry operates, on politics in it, on how processors and architectures are contracted and licensed, on what lobbying and political tools do big manufacturers like Intel use in order to get their advantage, about the history of the different architecture in general, on cybersecurity of the aspects of open/closed silicon, etc. etc. In short, yes RISC-V is a huge deal and if you care anything about software, hardware or computing in general you should be very happy and optimistic because of its existence. The team behind it is doing a tremendous monumental job of creating a free architecture, and they are still in the beginning of it.
- nickik 7y ago
  There are a couple nice innovations happening in RISC-V. A lot of nice FPGU stuff where you can extend the architecture yourself and tooling that supports that. There are some cool RISC-V chips out that have different advantages, AI accelerators, lower power and so on. Lots of security stuff as well. I mean sure, all those things exist in the ARM world to some extend or another, but there is defiantly cool stuff being built.
- imtringued 7y ago