4 ms·

MIPS is pretty similar to RISC-V, but RISC-V is a lot more mature by now. Seems like a reasonable business decision.

FullyFunctional 5y ago
People are throwing stones, but I suspect you didn't mean mature but perhaps "modern"? RISC-V doesn't carry all the endless legacy of 30+ years of MIPS variants and is in most ways cleaner and more streamlined (I do fear RISC-V is rushing towards its own mess, but that's another story). MIPS (the ISA) _could_ have had RISC-V current position but I don't think MIPS (the company) could have survived. Whether the Phoenix can survive this reinvention remains to be seen. It's a very crowded space, especially for in-order processors.
masklinn 5y ago
How can riscv be “more mature” when mips was used in commercialised consumer and industrial devices 30 years ago? The PS, PS2 and PSP ran on mips. So did the N64. Multiple top500 super-computers were mips. There were mips workstations and servers. mips went to pluto, the new horizon probe ran on mips.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- andrekandre 5y ago
  > How can riscv be “more mature” when mips was used in commercialised consumer and industrial devices 30 years ago? one thing i can think of is risc-v has done away with branch-delay slots... does modern mips isa still have those?
  - azinman2 5y ago
    That's not what mature means. Mature is that all edge cases have been explored, all kinds of random numerical computations have been expressed, tool chains & debuggers exists in many forms and are well supported, the chips have scaled from dish washers to RAD hardened satellites, etc etc
    - gnulinux 5y ago
      I'm sorry, I am the GP who used the word "mature" up there. This is not what I meant. I was talking about there being a greater software community around RISC-V compared to MIPS these days. E.g. having kernel, software, compiler support etc... My bad if I misused some terminology.
      - azinman2 5y ago
        Yes there’s certainly more momentum right now for RISC-V. MIPS is the definition of mature, so mature it’s nearly dead.

People are throwing stones, but I suspect you didn't mean mature but perhaps "modern"? RISC-V doesn't carry all the endless legacy of 30+ years of MIPS variants and is in most ways cleaner and more streamlined (I do fear RISC-V is rushing towards its own mess, but that's another story). MIPS (the ISA) _could_ have had RISC-V current position but I don't think MIPS (the company) could have survived. Whether the Phoenix can survive this reinvention remains to be seen. It's a very crowded space, especially for in-order processors.

masklinn 5y ago

How can riscv be “more mature” when mips was used in commercialised consumer and industrial devices 30 years ago? The PS, PS2 and PSP ran on mips. So did the N64. Multiple top500 super-computers were mips. There were mips workstations and servers. mips went to pluto, the new horizon probe ran on mips.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
andrekandre 5y ago
> How can riscv be “more mature” when mips was used in commercialised consumer and industrial devices 30 years ago? one thing i can think of is risc-v has done away with branch-delay slots... does modern mips isa still have those?
- azinman2 5y ago
  That's not what mature means. Mature is that all edge cases have been explored, all kinds of random numerical computations have been expressed, tool chains & debuggers exists in many forms and are well supported, the chips have scaled from dish washers to RAD hardened satellites, etc etc
  - gnulinux 5y ago
    I'm sorry, I am the GP who used the word "mature" up there. This is not what I meant. I was talking about there being a greater software community around RISC-V compared to MIPS these days. E.g. having kernel, software, compiler support etc... My bad if I misused some terminology.
    - azinman2 5y ago
      Yes there’s certainly more momentum right now for RISC-V. MIPS is the definition of mature, so mature it’s nearly dead.