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Decoupling the ownership of the ISA from ownership of the silicon means chip makers can compete more openly. Anyone with chip design capabilities can design and
by thereddaikon 3y ago
Decoupling the ownership of the ISA from ownership of the silicon means chip makers can compete more openly. Anyone with chip design capabilities can design and market their own premade RISC-V cores or offer custom silicon design services.
With ARM they acted as a gatekeeper through their licenses. Anyone who wanted to design ARM based chips needed a license and their licensing structure has gotten more complicated and expensive over the years.
- klelatti 3y agoSorry, this completely misses the point that many firms don't want to design their own CPUs, which is why Arm became so successful in the first place.
- thereddaikon 3y agoNo I'm not missing that point. My point is Qualcomm, Samsung, Intel, whoever doesn't have to pay a gatekeeper a license fee to design RISC-V cpus. They are also free to design and sell premade cores similar to how ARM does it today, Sans ISA license structure.
- klelatti 3y ago> Free to sell pre-made cores You do know that Arm makes a tiny amount on each core licensed and that none of the firms you mention will have any interest in that business model. If they’ve spent a lot of money on a competitive design they will not be handing to competitors for peanuts.
- thereddaikon 3y agoAre you saying Qualcomm doesn't have interest in selling cpus to customers without paying a third party a licensing fee? That doesn't make any sense. Companies are always interested in lowering their overheads.
- klelatti 3y ago> But this doesn't answer the question as to where firms go if they want to license a core rather than design in-house My original comment. Qualcomm won't be doing this. Or at least not for a fee that is in any way comparable to what Arm charges.