3 ms·
The US is clearly targeting Google releasing Android for RISC-V, or Qualcomm releasing RISC-V chips which can run RISC-V Android. RISC-V has been an 'obvious'
by londons_explore 3y ago
The US is clearly targeting Google releasing Android for RISC-V, or Qualcomm releasing RISC-V chips which can run RISC-V Android.
RISC-V has been an 'obvious' choice for Android for a long time - particularly for lower end devices or set-top-box type designs where the vendor has control of all the software (no third party binaries that need arm emulation).
The fact an official RISC-V port is soon to be released, I suspect is the reason behind this activity now.
- photonbeam 3y agoThere will still be US suppliers who want riscv android, so google will still do it. China could still design their own riscv chips and run AOSP without google, so it wouldn’t change much
- londons_explore 3y agoBut without Google making all the app ecosystem support RISC-V, I suspect any RISC-V phone would have a chicken and egg problem - with no apps available, no user would want to run it. Google is in a unique position to solve that by making the toolchain automatically compile for RISC-V as well, and in a matter of months most apps will support it.
- miohtama 3y agoGoogle is in unique position, because they are a company with a track record delivering software in massive ecosystem scale. Non-US companies like Samsung, Nokia, and every Chinese company, cannot write quality software, based on the 25 years of track record. This is why they all depend on Google for Android. This has been discussed earlier on HN why is this and it comes down to corporate culture and such matters.
- Narishma 3y agoHow would that change anything in regards to China having access to RISC-V?
- snvzz 3y agoAOSP already supports RISC-V. Reverting course wouldn't prevent China from using the code they already have, which in the first place was largely contributed by companies based in China.