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Can someone with some industry experience comment on how RISC-V will change the geopolitical dynamics? From what I understand it's a standardized instruction se

Can someone with some industry experience comment on how RISC-V will change the geopolitical dynamics? From what I understand it's a standardized instruction set (coming out of UCS Berkeley) that would provide a standard design for chips. From what I've read it doesn't sound like the architecture would be able to be able to be used on M1 and M2 chip design, but it does mean that fabrication of chips would be open sourced so long as it conforms to the standard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/tech-war-china-bets-on-risc-v-chips-to-escape-the-shackles-of-us-tech-export-restrictions/ar-AA14Pj4G https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/tech-war-china-bets-on-... To me this sounds like the US is adopting a bet on entrenched monopolies in Intel and TSMC while China is making a bid for open source architectures (I wouldn't say that there are "good guys" and "bad guys" here, only that in the Machiavellian sense the US has first mover advantage in chips and is engaged in import restrictions and RISC-V is a new standard). I worry that this could have implications for Taiwan if they lose the geopolitical advantage of having a monopoly on chip production. I'm also concerned that the US administration could be placing big bets for the economy on shoring up tech firms that may become outdated when the chip making market becomes competitive again internationally. Thoughts?

ssnistfajen 4y ago
The actual chips still have to be made and that's where the conflicts are happening, because China's domestic semiconductor production is still reliant on foreign suppliers such as ASML for crucial stages of production. This isn't a war about instruction sets or computer architecture. And no RISC-V doesn't provide a "standard design" for chips. It is about making different chips made by different parties to be able to run the same programs without the licensing nightmare of Intel-AMD duopoly or ARM.
- whazor 4y ago
  Note that ASML machines will stop working if not continuously supplied with replacement parts, software fixes, and calibrations. The machines are incredible complicated on every level.

ssnistfajen 4y ago

The actual chips still have to be made and that's where the conflicts are happening, because China's domestic semiconductor production is still reliant on foreign suppliers such as ASML for crucial stages of production. This isn't a war about instruction sets or computer architecture. And no RISC-V doesn't provide a "standard design" for chips. It is about making different chips made by different parties to be able to run the same programs without the licensing nightmare of Intel-AMD duopoly or ARM.

whazor 4y ago
Note that ASML machines will stop working if not continuously supplied with replacement parts, software fixes, and calibrations. The machines are incredible complicated on every level.