7 ms·

Wow, this has been settled already? I mean, I am sure ARM will appeal. ARM did massive damage to their ecosystem for nothing. There will for sure be consequenc

Wow, this has been settled already? I mean, I am sure ARM will appeal. ARM did massive damage to their ecosystem for nothing. There will for sure be consequences of suing your largest customer. Lots of people that would have defaulted to licensing designed off ARM for whatever chips they have planned will now be considering RISC-V instead. ARM just accelerated the timeline for their biggest future competitor. Genius.

bhouston 2y ago
RISC-V is not anywhere near competitive to ARM at the level that Qualcomm operates. I’ve written about that here: https://benhouston3d.com/blog/risc-v-in-2024-is-slow https://benhouston3d.com/blog/risc-v-in-2024-is-slow
- 3eb7988a1663 2y ago
  Not everyone is trying to make a chip for a phone. There are plenty of low compute applications which just need something.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    Correct. Also correct: RISC-V is not anywhere near competitive to ARM at the level that Qualcomm operates.
- boredatoms 2y ago
  RISCV is an instruction set, but you compare ASICs If qualcomm changes instruction decoding over you’ll likely see a dramatic difference
- fidotron 2y ago
  Your otherwise on point piece contains the common misconception that ARM began in embedded systems. When they started they had a full computer system that had very competitive CPU performance for the time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes They pivoted to embedded shortly after spinning off into a separate company.
  - MissTake 2y ago
    Not to be pedantic, but… Acorn Computers started off much earlier (I owned an Acorn Atom when it was released) which begat the Electron, then the BBC Micro and then the Archimedes. At that time ARM was just an architecture owned by Acorn. They created it with VSLI technology (Acorn’s Silicon partner) and used the first RISC chip in the BBC Micro before then pivoting it to the Archimedes. Whilst Acorn itself was initially purchased by Olivetti, who eventually sold what remained years later to Morgan Stanley. The ARM division was spun off as “Advanced RISC Machines” in a deal with both Apple, and VSLI Technology after Olivetti came onto the scene. It is this company that we now know as Arm Holdings. So it’s not entirely accurate to claim “they had a full computer system” as that was Acorn Computers, PLC.
    - fidotron 2y ago
      Actually one of the first ARM spin off products was the 250 for Acorn, which was an entire Acorn computer system on a a chip. Some of the other details you have are wrong too, to the point your comment is really quite misleading. Anyone wanting an accurate version should check wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers (To be blunt the above comment is like a very bad LLM summary of the Acorn article).
- 6SixTy 2y ago
  How is Geekbench any good at comparing RISC-V to ARM? Geekbench isn't a native RISC-V application, let alone has the wherewithal to correctly report any basic information like frequency or core count. You haven't even prefaced these either, and drew conclusions from them. Also, actually searching the chip in question is impossible.
  - phire 2y ago
    There are preview builds of Geekbench that are native RISC-V.
    - 6SixTy 2y ago
      Doesn't mean that it is compiled with Vector support or optimizations, which is going to artificially make the results worse.
      - refulgentis 2y ago
        Neutral party here, well not so neutral, I up voted you, it's a reasonable question at first blush: however here, you're doubling down with another comment that very clearly indicates you didn't read the link provided I highly recommend it, most incisive RISC-V article I've read.
        snvzz 2y ago
        Your reply does not address the parent. Geekbench does indeed not support the Vector extension, and thus yields very poor results on RISC-V.
        refulgentis 2y ago
        You reply does not address the great great great grandparent. RISC-V does indeed not have pipeline reordering. The Geekbench score thing is a strawman invented to distract from that, no one has mentioned Geekbench except the people arguing it doesn't matter. Everyone agrees, it doesn't matter. So why pound the table about it?
- crote 2y ago
  It would be more accurate to say that there haven't been any RISC-V designs for Qualcomm's market segment yet. As far as I am aware, there is nothing about the RISC-V architecture which inherently prevents it from ever being competitive with ARM. The people designing their own cores just haven't bothered to do so yet. RISC-V isn't competitive in 2024, but that doesn't mean that it still won't be competitive in 2030 or 2035. If you were starting a project today at a company like Amazon or Google to develop a fully custom core, would you really stick with ARM - knowing what they tried to do with Qualcomm?
  - hashtag-til 2y ago
    But then there is the software ecosystem issue. Having a competitive CPU is 1% of the job. Then you need To have a competitive SoC (oh and not infringe IP), so that you can build the software ecosystem, which is the hard bit.
    - Krastan 2y ago
      We've seen compatibility layers between x86 and arm. Am I correct in thinking that a compatibility layer between riscV and arm would be easier/more performant since they're both risc architectures?
      - BirAdam 2y ago
        There are already compatibility layers for x86 on RISC-V. They’re not quite as good, but progress is being made. Edit, link: https://box86.org/2024/08/box64-and-risc-v-in-2024/ https://box86.org/2024/08/box64-and-risc-v-in-2024/
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Not an issue because exceyt for a few windows or apple machines everthing arm is compiled and odds are they have the source. Give our ee a good risc-v and a couple years latter we will have our stuff rebult for that cpu
      - 2y ago
- nine_k 2y ago
  But for many other customers, who might need something like an A0 core, it's a strong signal to consider RISC-V instead.
- hajile 2y ago
  Your statement that "RISC-V in 2024 is slow" gets followed by a crazy sequitur that this will continue to be the case for a long time. Ventana announced their second-gen Veyron 2 core at the beginning of this year and they are releasing a 192-core 4nm chip using it in 2025. They claim Veyron 2 is an 8-wide decoder with a uop cache allowing up to 15-wide issue and a 512-bit vector unit too. In raw numbers, they claim SpecInt per chip is significantly higher than an EPYC 9754 (Zen4) with the same TDP. We can argue about what things will look like after it launches, but it certainly crushes the idea that RISC-V isn't going to be competing with ARM any time soon.
  - bhouston 2y ago
    In my article I only say that it is currently slow and that there are various initiatives to make it fast and I am hopeful for the future.
    - snvzz 2y ago
      The article ignores IP available for licensing, which is what is relevant in the context. SoC designers choose from existing IP blocks, not from existing physical chips.
- snvzz 2y ago
  If you're talking physical chips you can buy off the shelf, sure. But if you're talking IP, which would be what matters for the argument being made (core IP to use on new design), here's where we at (thanks to camel-cdr- on reddit[0]): (rule of thumb SPEC2006*10 = SPEC2017) SiFive P870-D: >18 SpecINT2006/GHz, >2 SpecINT2017/GHz Akeana 5300: 25 SpecINT2006/GHz @ 3GHz Tenstorrent Ascalon: >18 SpecINT2006/GHz, IIRC they mentioned targeting 18-20 at a high frequency Some references for comparing: Apple M1: 21.7 SpecINT2006/GHz, 2.33 SpecINT2017/GHz Apple M4: 2.6 SpecINT2017/GHz Zen5 9950x: 1.8 SpecINT2017/GHz Current license-able RISC-V IP is certainly not slow. 0. https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1gpssxy/x8664_patents_today/lwxsyn0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1gpssxy/x8664_pat...
  - inkyoto 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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bhouston 2y ago

RISC-V is not anywhere near competitive to ARM at the level that Qualcomm operates. I’ve written about that here: https://benhouston3d.com/blog/risc-v-in-2024-is-slow https://benhouston3d.com/blog/risc-v-in-2024-is-slow

3eb7988a1663 2y ago
Not everyone is trying to make a chip for a phone. There are plenty of low compute applications which just need something.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  Correct. Also correct: RISC-V is not anywhere near competitive to ARM at the level that Qualcomm operates.
boredatoms 2y ago
RISCV is an instruction set, but you compare ASICs If qualcomm changes instruction decoding over you’ll likely see a dramatic difference
fidotron 2y ago
Your otherwise on point piece contains the common misconception that ARM began in embedded systems. When they started they had a full computer system that had very competitive CPU performance for the time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes They pivoted to embedded shortly after spinning off into a separate company.
- MissTake 2y ago
  Not to be pedantic, but… Acorn Computers started off much earlier (I owned an Acorn Atom when it was released) which begat the Electron, then the BBC Micro and then the Archimedes. At that time ARM was just an architecture owned by Acorn. They created it with VSLI technology (Acorn’s Silicon partner) and used the first RISC chip in the BBC Micro before then pivoting it to the Archimedes. Whilst Acorn itself was initially purchased by Olivetti, who eventually sold what remained years later to Morgan Stanley. The ARM division was spun off as “Advanced RISC Machines” in a deal with both Apple, and VSLI Technology after Olivetti came onto the scene. It is this company that we now know as Arm Holdings. So it’s not entirely accurate to claim “they had a full computer system” as that was Acorn Computers, PLC.
  - fidotron 2y ago
    Actually one of the first ARM spin off products was the 250 for Acorn, which was an entire Acorn computer system on a a chip. Some of the other details you have are wrong too, to the point your comment is really quite misleading. Anyone wanting an accurate version should check wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers (To be blunt the above comment is like a very bad LLM summary of the Acorn article).
6SixTy 2y ago
How is Geekbench any good at comparing RISC-V to ARM? Geekbench isn't a native RISC-V application, let alone has the wherewithal to correctly report any basic information like frequency or core count. You haven't even prefaced these either, and drew conclusions from them. Also, actually searching the chip in question is impossible.
- phire 2y ago
  There are preview builds of Geekbench that are native RISC-V.
  - 6SixTy 2y ago
    Doesn't mean that it is compiled with Vector support or optimizations, which is going to artificially make the results worse.
    - refulgentis 2y ago
      Neutral party here, well not so neutral, I up voted you, it's a reasonable question at first blush: however here, you're doubling down with another comment that very clearly indicates you didn't read the link provided I highly recommend it, most incisive RISC-V article I've read.
      - snvzz 2y ago
        Your reply does not address the parent. Geekbench does indeed not support the Vector extension, and thus yields very poor results on RISC-V.
        refulgentis 2y ago
        You reply does not address the great great great grandparent. RISC-V does indeed not have pipeline reordering. The Geekbench score thing is a strawman invented to distract from that, no one has mentioned Geekbench except the people arguing it doesn't matter. Everyone agrees, it doesn't matter. So why pound the table about it?
crote 2y ago
It would be more accurate to say that there haven't been any RISC-V designs for Qualcomm's market segment yet. As far as I am aware, there is nothing about the RISC-V architecture which inherently prevents it from ever being competitive with ARM. The people designing their own cores just haven't bothered to do so yet. RISC-V isn't competitive in 2024, but that doesn't mean that it still won't be competitive in 2030 or 2035. If you were starting a project today at a company like Amazon or Google to develop a fully custom core, would you really stick with ARM - knowing what they tried to do with Qualcomm?
- hashtag-til 2y ago
  But then there is the software ecosystem issue. Having a competitive CPU is 1% of the job. Then you need To have a competitive SoC (oh and not infringe IP), so that you can build the software ecosystem, which is the hard bit.
  - Krastan 2y ago
    We've seen compatibility layers between x86 and arm. Am I correct in thinking that a compatibility layer between riscV and arm would be easier/more performant since they're both risc architectures?
    - BirAdam 2y ago
      There are already compatibility layers for x86 on RISC-V. They’re not quite as good, but progress is being made. Edit, link: https://box86.org/2024/08/box64-and-risc-v-in-2024/ https://box86.org/2024/08/box64-and-risc-v-in-2024/
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Not an issue because exceyt for a few windows or apple machines everthing arm is compiled and odds are they have the source. Give our ee a good risc-v and a couple years latter we will have our stuff rebult for that cpu
    - 2y ago
nine_k 2y ago
But for many other customers, who might need something like an A0 core, it's a strong signal to consider RISC-V instead.
hajile 2y ago
Your statement that "RISC-V in 2024 is slow" gets followed by a crazy sequitur that this will continue to be the case for a long time. Ventana announced their second-gen Veyron 2 core at the beginning of this year and they are releasing a 192-core 4nm chip using it in 2025. They claim Veyron 2 is an 8-wide decoder with a uop cache allowing up to 15-wide issue and a 512-bit vector unit too. In raw numbers, they claim SpecInt per chip is significantly higher than an EPYC 9754 (Zen4) with the same TDP. We can argue about what things will look like after it launches, but it certainly crushes the idea that RISC-V isn't going to be competing with ARM any time soon.
- bhouston 2y ago
  In my article I only say that it is currently slow and that there are various initiatives to make it fast and I am hopeful for the future.
  - snvzz 2y ago
    The article ignores IP available for licensing, which is what is relevant in the context. SoC designers choose from existing IP blocks, not from existing physical chips.
snvzz 2y ago
If you're talking physical chips you can buy off the shelf, sure. But if you're talking IP, which would be what matters for the argument being made (core IP to use on new design), here's where we at (thanks to camel-cdr- on reddit[0]): (rule of thumb SPEC2006*10 = SPEC2017) SiFive P870-D: >18 SpecINT2006/GHz, >2 SpecINT2017/GHz Akeana 5300: 25 SpecINT2006/GHz @ 3GHz Tenstorrent Ascalon: >18 SpecINT2006/GHz, IIRC they mentioned targeting 18-20 at a high frequency Some references for comparing: Apple M1: 21.7 SpecINT2006/GHz, 2.33 SpecINT2017/GHz Apple M4: 2.6 SpecINT2017/GHz Zen5 9950x: 1.8 SpecINT2017/GHz Current license-able RISC-V IP is certainly not slow. 0. https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1gpssxy/x8664_patents_today/lwxsyn0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1gpssxy/x8664_pat...
- inkyoto 2y ago
  [flagged]

deleted 2y ago

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