5 ms·

In my opinion, all the RISC-V showing lately from Qualcomm is related to their Nuvia acquisition and the ensuing lawsuit with ARM regarding licensing Nuvia core

In my opinion, all the RISC-V showing lately from Qualcomm is related to their Nuvia acquisition and the ensuing lawsuit with ARM regarding licensing Nuvia core designs. Qualcomm is most likely doing this to put pressure on ARM. If/when the lawsuit is finished, I expect Qualcomm is deprioritize RISC-V projects.

LeFantome 3y ago
But why? What does ARM offer that is superior?
- kramerger 3y ago
  Not really where OP was headed, but... I would say RISC-V is still unmature in some areas. ARM is far more than ISA, for example the interrupt controller in a modern ARM SoC is more complex than a RISC-V core. Can anyone provide a viable RISC-V alternative with proper Linux support soon? Another issue is performance. We simply don't know how RISC-V performs compared to latest ARMs.
  - rickdeckard 3y ago
    That's why I believe it's a smart move to start with Android Wear as target-platform. It narrows the scope to less I/O, smaller screen-resolutions, lower cost, no cellular modem, yet still the same OS-architecture and moderate/high sales-volume. Good target to ramp up a new platform...
  - snvzz 3y ago
    >for example the interrupt controller in a modern ARM SoC is more complex than a RISC-V core. RISC-V has the AIA[0], a pretty good interrupt controller. It is a requirement in the platform spec. https://github.com/riscv/riscv-aia https://github.com/riscv/riscv-aia
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  High-end cores you can license? Besides that ARM still seems to be superior to RISC-V in pretty much every way besides the fact that you have to deal with ARM itself. Which might also be a positive thing in some cases i.e. designing your own cores from scratch should be much more expensive than licensing from ARM.
  - snvzz 3y ago
    >High-end cores you can license? Yet Ascalon and Alastor can be licensed, today, and ARM has nothing with comparable performance. LG already licensed Ascalon. Nevermind ARM, Apple's current M2 CPUs doesn't compare to Ascalon.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      I’m not sure hypothetical/imaginary (until one can prove otherwise) CPUs count
      - snvzz 3y ago
        The context was: >High-end cores you can license? And they are cores you can license -and LG has licensed already[0]- i.e. not in any way imaginary or hypothetical. Let's try and not move goalposts. 0. https://www.eetimes.com/jim-keller-on-ai-risc-v-tenstorrents-move-to-edge-ip/ https://www.eetimes.com/jim-keller-on-ai-risc-v-tenstorrents...
        ffgjgf1 3y ago
        An actual cpu running actual benchmarks or real world benchmarks seems like a very reasonable goalpost, not sure who is supposedly moving them
        snvzz 3y ago
        >not sure who is supposedly moving them You, obviously. Your goalpost was: >High-end cores you can license? And now you're trying to turn it into: >An actual cpu running actual benchmarks or real world benchmarks Which constitutes a (failed) attempt to move the goalpost, right after having been given exactly what you asked for.
rickdeckard 3y ago
Well, they might announce this publicly to help their license negotiations with ARM (rumor is that their license is up for renewal in 2024). But Qualcomm is also a multi billion-dollar company which has no second supplier for their core technology. They used to license the ARM architecture to build their own designs (Scorpion, Krait), but lately the CPU-cores are mostly ARM-design. RISC-V would be a good candidate to reduce their business risk. -- Whereas when trying to remove the litigation-PR from the Nuvia lawsuit, the case is about Qualcomm trying to transfer everything Nuvia has developed under a specific narrow ARM-license to the broad license of Qualcomm: ARM originally gave favorable conditions to Nuvia, a startup which aimed to develop tech and compete in a field where ARM is weak (servers). Now Qualcomm, the biggest customer of the strongest revenue-market of ARM (mobile devices) has acquired that startup to repurpose their development and use it in mobile devices, PCs, automotive, VR,... ARM has filed a lawsuit that this was never in scope of the license and that the tech should be destroyed: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273195/arm-v-qualcomm-99-9999-stamped-complaint.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273195/arm-v-qualco...

LeFantome 3y ago

But why? What does ARM offer that is superior?

kramerger 3y ago
Not really where OP was headed, but... I would say RISC-V is still unmature in some areas. ARM is far more than ISA, for example the interrupt controller in a modern ARM SoC is more complex than a RISC-V core. Can anyone provide a viable RISC-V alternative with proper Linux support soon? Another issue is performance. We simply don't know how RISC-V performs compared to latest ARMs.
- rickdeckard 3y ago
  That's why I believe it's a smart move to start with Android Wear as target-platform. It narrows the scope to less I/O, smaller screen-resolutions, lower cost, no cellular modem, yet still the same OS-architecture and moderate/high sales-volume. Good target to ramp up a new platform...
- snvzz 3y ago
  >for example the interrupt controller in a modern ARM SoC is more complex than a RISC-V core. RISC-V has the AIA[0], a pretty good interrupt controller. It is a requirement in the platform spec. https://github.com/riscv/riscv-aia https://github.com/riscv/riscv-aia
ffgjgf1 3y ago
High-end cores you can license? Besides that ARM still seems to be superior to RISC-V in pretty much every way besides the fact that you have to deal with ARM itself. Which might also be a positive thing in some cases i.e. designing your own cores from scratch should be much more expensive than licensing from ARM.
- snvzz 3y ago
  >High-end cores you can license? Yet Ascalon and Alastor can be licensed, today, and ARM has nothing with comparable performance. LG already licensed Ascalon. Nevermind ARM, Apple's current M2 CPUs doesn't compare to Ascalon.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    I’m not sure hypothetical/imaginary (until one can prove otherwise) CPUs count
    - snvzz 3y ago
      The context was: >High-end cores you can license? And they are cores you can license -and LG has licensed already[0]- i.e. not in any way imaginary or hypothetical. Let's try and not move goalposts. 0. https://www.eetimes.com/jim-keller-on-ai-risc-v-tenstorrents-move-to-edge-ip/ https://www.eetimes.com/jim-keller-on-ai-risc-v-tenstorrents...
      - ffgjgf1 3y ago
        An actual cpu running actual benchmarks or real world benchmarks seems like a very reasonable goalpost, not sure who is supposedly moving them
        snvzz 3y ago
        >not sure who is supposedly moving them You, obviously. Your goalpost was: >High-end cores you can license? And now you're trying to turn it into: >An actual cpu running actual benchmarks or real world benchmarks Which constitutes a (failed) attempt to move the goalpost, right after having been given exactly what you asked for.

rickdeckard 3y ago

Well, they might announce this publicly to help their license negotiations with ARM (rumor is that their license is up for renewal in 2024). But Qualcomm is also a multi billion-dollar company which has no second supplier for their core technology. They used to license the ARM architecture to build their own designs (Scorpion, Krait), but lately the CPU-cores are mostly ARM-design. RISC-V would be a good candidate to reduce their business risk. -- Whereas when trying to remove the litigation-PR from the Nuvia lawsuit, the case is about Qualcomm trying to transfer everything Nuvia has developed under a specific narrow ARM-license to the broad license of Qualcomm: ARM originally gave favorable conditions to Nuvia, a startup which aimed to develop tech and compete in a field where ARM is weak (servers). Now Qualcomm, the biggest customer of the strongest revenue-market of ARM (mobile devices) has acquired that startup to repurpose their development and use it in mobile devices, PCs, automotive, VR,... ARM has filed a lawsuit that this was never in scope of the license and that the tech should be destroyed: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273195/arm-v-qualcomm-99-9999-stamped-complaint.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22273195/arm-v-qualco...