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RISC-V is taking over the world at quite the pace. I doubt it won't be bigger than ARM ever was or ever will be; within just 3 years from now I expect it to be

by snvzz 4y ago

RISC-V is taking over the world at quite the pace. I doubt it won't be bigger than ARM ever was or ever will be; within just 3 years from now I expect it to be taking on x86.

pjmlp 4y ago
Wishful thinking, it hardly matters beyond some embedded workloads.
- justinclift 4y ago
  It does appear to be at least trying to go up the value chain, and - perhaps weirdly - it also seems to be getting a look-in with supercomputers. For the "up the value chain" bit, things like the very-early-stage PineTab-V: https://www.pine64.org/2023/04/01/march-update-tablet-bonanza/ https://www.pine64.org/2023/04/01/march-update-tablet-bonanz... Plus the Tenstorrent (Canadian based) server oriented stuff: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tenstorrent-shares-roadmap-of-ultra-high-performance-risc-v-cpus-and-ai-accelerators https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tenstorrent-shares-roadmap... For the supercomputer bit: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-explore-risc-v-isa-for-zettascale-supercomputers https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-explore-risc-v-is... and: https://www.nextplatform.com/2022/06/09/strong-showing-for-first-experimental-risc-v-supercomputer/ https://www.nextplatform.com/2022/06/09/strong-showing-for-f... Whether any of that will get traction is clearly a "who knows" thing, but the signs seem to be pointing in the positive direction.
- snvzz 4y ago
  The timeline is what it is. Specs such as V, H or the Zb* needed for server/workstation workloads were ratified in late 2021. Assuming hardware was developed alongside the specs, which didn't change much near the time of ratification, then 2-3 years need to be added for actual products. We are about to see the first wave. We know Tenstorrent (CEO: Jim Keller) has a design they expect to release in 2024 with performance competitive with projected Zen5 (also 2024), but using less power. That's Ascalon, a design led by the same person who was M1's chief architect at Apple. We also know SiFive, MIPS, Rivos, Ventana are each working on their own very high performance designs, and have teams full of extremely capable people who have a history of success in high performance chips. That's a lot, and that's just what we know of. There's necessarily more efforts beyond the surface, which we don't yet know about. Ventana's Veyron might be the first to market, with server chips expected 2023H2.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    What matters is seeing AWS, Azure and GCP adopting them at a scale that surpaces ARM, likewise Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung et al for their OSes.
    - snvzz 4y ago
      Yes. Microsoft and Google, their RISC-V efforts we already know about. Android RISC-V port, already merged upstream, was an effort funded by by Chinese SoC vendors. Capable chips and smartphones will follow, this is an inevitability. As for AWS, GCP and Azure (sorted them in actual order of relevance), they will definitely start offering RISC-V support at some point and then we can see whether it picks up. But high performance server hardware is a prerequisite for this to be possible, thus my parent post.
datadeft 4y ago
> RISC-V is taking over the world Citation needed. Apple is the most successful ARM platform as of now. Everything else is minor compare to them. I would really like to see that we have RISC-V as an alternative platform but right now it is a nice toy to play with and even for the toy usecases the selection is very limited.
- snvzz 4y ago
  Feel free to poke me once Microsoft decides to support Apple's hardware on Windows for ARM. I honestly do not see it happening. Until then, whatever hardware Apple has is irrelevant to the Windows discussion.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Microsoft is already having issues to move Windows development community into ARM for the last decade, it is a pipe dream they will ever care with RISC-V.
    - snvzz 4y ago
      >it is a pipe dream they will ever care with RISC-V. They already care about RISC-V as I explained in other posts in this discussion, and there's not even hardware yet. Hardware is finally about to show up, also explained, to you specifically, in another post in this discussion. RISC-V is inevitable.
      - justinclift 4y ago
        > RISC-V is inevitable. While it does seem pretty likely, "inevitable" is perhaps overstating things. If RISC-V does make solid inroads into servers and supercomputers, then (perhaps ironically?) the US gov may start doing funky things to suppress it. They don't want China successfully countering the recent chip-making suppression efforts, which RISC-V could enable. Probably not something we'll see in 2023 though, so that's totally wild guessing. ;)

by snvzz 4y ago

RISC-V is taking over the world at quite the pace. I doubt it won't be bigger than ARM ever was or ever will be; within just 3 years from now I expect it to be taking on x86.

pjmlp 4y ago

Wishful thinking, it hardly matters beyond some embedded workloads.

justinclift 4y ago
It does appear to be at least trying to go up the value chain, and - perhaps weirdly - it also seems to be getting a look-in with supercomputers. For the "up the value chain" bit, things like the very-early-stage PineTab-V: https://www.pine64.org/2023/04/01/march-update-tablet-bonanza/ https://www.pine64.org/2023/04/01/march-update-tablet-bonanz... Plus the Tenstorrent (Canadian based) server oriented stuff: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tenstorrent-shares-roadmap-of-ultra-high-performance-risc-v-cpus-and-ai-accelerators https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tenstorrent-shares-roadmap... For the supercomputer bit: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-explore-risc-v-isa-for-zettascale-supercomputers https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-explore-risc-v-is... and: https://www.nextplatform.com/2022/06/09/strong-showing-for-first-experimental-risc-v-supercomputer/ https://www.nextplatform.com/2022/06/09/strong-showing-for-f... Whether any of that will get traction is clearly a "who knows" thing, but the signs seem to be pointing in the positive direction.
snvzz 4y ago
The timeline is what it is. Specs such as V, H or the Zb* needed for server/workstation workloads were ratified in late 2021. Assuming hardware was developed alongside the specs, which didn't change much near the time of ratification, then 2-3 years need to be added for actual products. We are about to see the first wave. We know Tenstorrent (CEO: Jim Keller) has a design they expect to release in 2024 with performance competitive with projected Zen5 (also 2024), but using less power. That's Ascalon, a design led by the same person who was M1's chief architect at Apple. We also know SiFive, MIPS, Rivos, Ventana are each working on their own very high performance designs, and have teams full of extremely capable people who have a history of success in high performance chips. That's a lot, and that's just what we know of. There's necessarily more efforts beyond the surface, which we don't yet know about. Ventana's Veyron might be the first to market, with server chips expected 2023H2.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  What matters is seeing AWS, Azure and GCP adopting them at a scale that surpaces ARM, likewise Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung et al for their OSes.
  - snvzz 4y ago
    Yes. Microsoft and Google, their RISC-V efforts we already know about. Android RISC-V port, already merged upstream, was an effort funded by by Chinese SoC vendors. Capable chips and smartphones will follow, this is an inevitability. As for AWS, GCP and Azure (sorted them in actual order of relevance), they will definitely start offering RISC-V support at some point and then we can see whether it picks up. But high performance server hardware is a prerequisite for this to be possible, thus my parent post.

datadeft 4y ago

> RISC-V is taking over the world Citation needed. Apple is the most successful ARM platform as of now. Everything else is minor compare to them. I would really like to see that we have RISC-V as an alternative platform but right now it is a nice toy to play with and even for the toy usecases the selection is very limited.

snvzz 4y ago
Feel free to poke me once Microsoft decides to support Apple's hardware on Windows for ARM. I honestly do not see it happening. Until then, whatever hardware Apple has is irrelevant to the Windows discussion.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Microsoft is already having issues to move Windows development community into ARM for the last decade, it is a pipe dream they will ever care with RISC-V.
  - snvzz 4y ago
    >it is a pipe dream they will ever care with RISC-V. They already care about RISC-V as I explained in other posts in this discussion, and there's not even hardware yet. Hardware is finally about to show up, also explained, to you specifically, in another post in this discussion. RISC-V is inevitable.
    - justinclift 4y ago
      > RISC-V is inevitable. While it does seem pretty likely, "inevitable" is perhaps overstating things. If RISC-V does make solid inroads into servers and supercomputers, then (perhaps ironically?) the US gov may start doing funky things to suppress it. They don't want China successfully countering the recent chip-making suppression efforts, which RISC-V could enable. Probably not something we'll see in 2023 though, so that's totally wild guessing. ;)