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What could Apple possibly gain by switching to RISC-V? They already design their own ARM cores anyway so licensing isn’t an issue

iainmerrick 3y ago
In that timespan RISC-V could leapfrog ARM in overall performance (including power usage and price) -- who knows? Performance improvements have been a big driver of those previous migrations.
- bitwize 3y ago
  Apple could just buy up the world's capacity of the smallest node size process and build a faster chip with lower power draw, irrespective of whether ARM or RISC-V.
- manuelabeledo 3y ago
  Apple didn’t migrate from PowerPC to Intel because Intel CPUs were way faster, there was just not a way for keeping with the demand and get new processors into the new cash drivers of the time, i.e. laptops. It was essentially the same with Intel and Arm, plus the fact that they could save money and further integrate vertically.
  - djxfade 3y ago
    Yes they did. You had fast PowerPC chips at the time, but they couldn't compete at power efficiency, which was important for consumer hardware, especially portable devices.
    - manuelabeledo 3y ago
      I'm confused. Of course Intel chips were better for laptops, that's exactly what I said.
      - iainmerrick 3y ago
        That’s why I said “including power usage and price” above. IBM just weren’t able and/or willing to match Intel’s chips for Apple’s purposes. (As I recall, but maybe I misremember, Apple claimed a big performance advantage for their high-end G5 Macs but in the real world it was a bit dubious.)
- tzs 3y ago
  That could happen for ordinary people and companies who have to rely on commodity processors or who license ARM cores and add their own peripherals around them on a custom chip, but Apple designs their own ARM processors. They have an ARM architecture license. They design their own ARM implementations from the ground up. If something can be done to RISC-V designs that would leapfrog ARM and ARM does not want to incorporate whatever breakthrough that is into their own cores for some reason that will mean that the people who rely on commodity ARM chips or on licensed ARM cores will be out of luck. Apple on the other hand would be free to incorporate that into their ARM implementation.
- ffhhttt 3y ago
  > RISC-V could leapfrog ARM in overall performance RISC-v is an instruction set. If any company made a better RISC-v core than Apple can make themselves they could either buy it from them or make their own faster ARM core. That’s what happened with Intel and PowerPC… What improvements in the instruction set itself could make RISC-v fundamentally faster than equivalent ARM chips?

iainmerrick 3y ago

In that timespan RISC-V could leapfrog ARM in overall performance (including power usage and price) -- who knows? Performance improvements have been a big driver of those previous migrations.

bitwize 3y ago
Apple could just buy up the world's capacity of the smallest node size process and build a faster chip with lower power draw, irrespective of whether ARM or RISC-V.
manuelabeledo 3y ago
Apple didn’t migrate from PowerPC to Intel because Intel CPUs were way faster, there was just not a way for keeping with the demand and get new processors into the new cash drivers of the time, i.e. laptops. It was essentially the same with Intel and Arm, plus the fact that they could save money and further integrate vertically.
- djxfade 3y ago
  Yes they did. You had fast PowerPC chips at the time, but they couldn't compete at power efficiency, which was important for consumer hardware, especially portable devices.
  - manuelabeledo 3y ago
    I'm confused. Of course Intel chips were better for laptops, that's exactly what I said.
    - iainmerrick 3y ago
      That’s why I said “including power usage and price” above. IBM just weren’t able and/or willing to match Intel’s chips for Apple’s purposes. (As I recall, but maybe I misremember, Apple claimed a big performance advantage for their high-end G5 Macs but in the real world it was a bit dubious.)
tzs 3y ago
That could happen for ordinary people and companies who have to rely on commodity processors or who license ARM cores and add their own peripherals around them on a custom chip, but Apple designs their own ARM processors. They have an ARM architecture license. They design their own ARM implementations from the ground up. If something can be done to RISC-V designs that would leapfrog ARM and ARM does not want to incorporate whatever breakthrough that is into their own cores for some reason that will mean that the people who rely on commodity ARM chips or on licensed ARM cores will be out of luck. Apple on the other hand would be free to incorporate that into their ARM implementation.
ffhhttt 3y ago
> RISC-V could leapfrog ARM in overall performance RISC-v is an instruction set. If any company made a better RISC-v core than Apple can make themselves they could either buy it from them or make their own faster ARM core. That’s what happened with Intel and PowerPC… What improvements in the instruction set itself could make RISC-v fundamentally faster than equivalent ARM chips?