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It will be interesting to see, but both macOS and Windows already run on ARM and it is a widely known instruction-set. For companies to suddenly switch to RISC-
by socialdemocrat 6y ago
It will be interesting to see, but both macOS and Windows already run on ARM and it is a widely known instruction-set. For companies to suddenly switch to RISC-V instead I think there needs to be some very clear advantages.
I am starting to see hints that RISC-V designs may be able to outperform ARM by a good margin. But thus far I don't think that is a firmly established truth.
- snvzz 6y agoThe main blockers are B and V extensions not being ratified yet. They're close to ready and some chips are being released that support the drafts, but as these extensions are required for high performance implementations and as incompatible changes might still happen, these chips aren't going anywhere but embedded, where there's control over the whole stack. And SBC devboards, where people will grab them with full awareness of this situation. Besides SiFive, there's the PicoRio, some new SBC SoC from Allwinner, and a successor for the kendryte k210. All meant to be purchasable in early 2021. Some of them with these draft extensions. Meantime, I am playing with FPGAs (iCE40 and ECP5).
- brucehoult 6y agoAll of that will of course be resolved in the next 12 or 24 months. Too late for Apple, at least in this iteration. Once they have completed the AS switch they could contemplate another one in maybe five years, if there's some advantage. Even in two years, before developers build too many arm64 assumptions into their freshly-ported from x86 code.