5 ms·

Serious question, x86 has obviously gotten us very far, but has legacy baggage, plus licensing restrictions. Is RISC-V so much better that the future (whatever

Serious question, x86 has obviously gotten us very far, but has legacy baggage, plus licensing restrictions. Is RISC-V so much better that the future (whatever long horizon) is inevitable? Or are we likely to continue x86 forever? RISC for specialized (matmul, embedded) applications and x86 will remain CPUs? If China injects $$ into the problem, will Intel and AMD have to follow?

John23832 3y ago
Both amd and intel have hitched their wagons to ARM.
snvzz 3y ago
RISC-V is inevitable. For legal reasons, not technical reasons. This is despite having the technical chops, providing highest code density in 32 and 64 bit with highly competitive path length[0], all while remaining a much simpler ISA relative to the competition. What actually matters is that it is an open ISA with huge traction that everybody gets a free license to. There's no need to ask for permission to use/implement it. RISC-V is rapidly building the strongest ecosystem. 0. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3624062.3624233 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3624062.3624233
aurareturn 3y ago
I can see a world in which the US transitions to ARM fully while everyone else transitions to RISCV. Apple is not going to change to RISCV after spending a huge amount to move their entire lineup of products to ARM. Everyone else like Amazon and Nvidia are making ARM chips. Even Intel and AMD are rumored to be designing ARM chips. Qualcomm is also moving ARM to computers and servers.
- ngcc_hk 3y ago
  Free world use both. But after totalitarian countries use riscv, it will cut and there are many ways to ban your adversities asset. Btw, adverse countries list are official.
- brucehoult 3y ago
  > Apple is not going to change to RISCV after spending a huge amount to move their entire lineup of products to ARM You could say the same about Apple spending a huge amount of money to move from 6502 to 68000 (which lasted 10 years), or spending a huge amount of money to move to PowerPC (which lasted 11 years), or spending a huge amount of money to move to x86 (which lasted 15 years). RISC-V wasn't ready when Apple made their move to Arm64 in 2020 -- the base RISC-V ISA was only published in final form in July 2019 (RV64GC aka RVA20), many things needed for good desktop systems were added in November 2021 (RVA22), and Android for example is going to require the new RVA23 profile as its minimum configuration when the first devices come out around 2026. Apple could move to RISC-V from around 2026 if they really wanted to. In an extraordinary move they've signed up with Arm until 2040 -- 16 years from now -- but who knows what will happen in that time period. Will Arm even exist? Will Apple be the only company still using the ISA? At least with arm64 Apple is building their own cores and chips. Apple moved on from 68000, PowerPC, and x86 not because the companies ceased to exist but because they stopped making chips relevant to Apple, or the direction Apple wanted to move. But never say it's too expensive for Apple to move ISAs. They've done it four times already, they can do it again.
  - aurareturn 3y ago
    They've done it for their computers only, which is just 10% of their revenue in 2024. If they do it again, they'd have to do it for the iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro, Macs, monitors that have A series chips, Apple TV, Watch, and all their smaller products. I didn't say never. But 2040 is probably around the time they'd do it if they ever do it.
    - snvzz 3y ago
      >I didn't say never. But 2040 is probably around the time they'd do it if they ever do it. Doubtful. Once a decision is made, it would take full effect within 5 years. And if they make the decision, they would make it when they determine that the ISA is ready (which would be soon, if not already in the past). Not a decade after.
    - brucehoult 3y ago

John23832 3y ago

Both amd and intel have hitched their wagons to ARM.

snvzz 3y ago

RISC-V is inevitable. For legal reasons, not technical reasons. This is despite having the technical chops, providing highest code density in 32 and 64 bit with highly competitive path length[0], all while remaining a much simpler ISA relative to the competition. What actually matters is that it is an open ISA with huge traction that everybody gets a free license to. There's no need to ask for permission to use/implement it. RISC-V is rapidly building the strongest ecosystem. 0. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3624062.3624233 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3624062.3624233

aurareturn 3y ago

I can see a world in which the US transitions to ARM fully while everyone else transitions to RISCV. Apple is not going to change to RISCV after spending a huge amount to move their entire lineup of products to ARM. Everyone else like Amazon and Nvidia are making ARM chips. Even Intel and AMD are rumored to be designing ARM chips. Qualcomm is also moving ARM to computers and servers.

ngcc_hk 3y ago
Free world use both. But after totalitarian countries use riscv, it will cut and there are many ways to ban your adversities asset. Btw, adverse countries list are official.
brucehoult 3y ago
> Apple is not going to change to RISCV after spending a huge amount to move their entire lineup of products to ARM You could say the same about Apple spending a huge amount of money to move from 6502 to 68000 (which lasted 10 years), or spending a huge amount of money to move to PowerPC (which lasted 11 years), or spending a huge amount of money to move to x86 (which lasted 15 years). RISC-V wasn't ready when Apple made their move to Arm64 in 2020 -- the base RISC-V ISA was only published in final form in July 2019 (RV64GC aka RVA20), many things needed for good desktop systems were added in November 2021 (RVA22), and Android for example is going to require the new RVA23 profile as its minimum configuration when the first devices come out around 2026. Apple could move to RISC-V from around 2026 if they really wanted to. In an extraordinary move they've signed up with Arm until 2040 -- 16 years from now -- but who knows what will happen in that time period. Will Arm even exist? Will Apple be the only company still using the ISA? At least with arm64 Apple is building their own cores and chips. Apple moved on from 68000, PowerPC, and x86 not because the companies ceased to exist but because they stopped making chips relevant to Apple, or the direction Apple wanted to move. But never say it's too expensive for Apple to move ISAs. They've done it four times already, they can do it again.
- aurareturn 3y ago
  They've done it for their computers only, which is just 10% of their revenue in 2024. If they do it again, they'd have to do it for the iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro, Macs, monitors that have A series chips, Apple TV, Watch, and all their smaller products. I didn't say never. But 2040 is probably around the time they'd do it if they ever do it.
  - snvzz 3y ago
    >I didn't say never. But 2040 is probably around the time they'd do it if they ever do it. Doubtful. Once a decision is made, it would take full effect within 5 years. And if they make the decision, they would make it when they determine that the ISA is ready (which would be soon, if not already in the past). Not a decade after.
  - brucehoult 3y ago