5 ms·

Most people don't need more than a Chromebook has to offer. I can't imagine why this wouldn't eventually take off there and become the main CPU that people spen

Most people don't need more than a Chromebook has to offer. I can't imagine why this wouldn't eventually take off there and become the main CPU that people spend time on. Especially as margin tighten, the ISA-license will be will something that has to go. "Your margin is my opportunity".

Wytwwww 2y ago
IMHO it might be the complete opposite. Margins are low and and off the shelf ARM designs are very cheap so what's the point of making very risky investments when you can already get good enough off the shelf designs from ARM? If the licensing fee is only ~1-2% who can justify this besides Qualcomm, Apple, Nvidia, etc.? And Apple and Qualcomm only did this because they wanted to (and could afford to) design faster chips than ARM.
- snvzz 2y ago
  There's the option of licensing a RISC-V microarchitecture, rather than an ARM one. It has the advantage that RISC-V is an open standard, and there are many companies licenses for their own RISC-V microarchitectures, rather than being stuck with licensing ARM cores from ARM.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    From whom? I'm not sure why would anyone who can design high-end RISC-V cores would license them to someone else instead of making the chips themselves. As ARM has demonstrated that's not a very good business model (they are barely making any money compared to some of their customers).
    - snvzz 2y ago
      >From whom? From any of the IP vendors offering them. e.g. Tenstorrent has Ascalon (already licensed by LG) and Alastor, SiFive has P670 and P870, Akeana has the 5000 series.
      - Wytwwww 2y ago
        I just don't understand why would anyone who developed a competitive mid to high-end core would want to license it to anyone? What would they have to gain by doing that instead of making them themselves? Of course there are cases where the CPU is pretty much just a "cost centre" (embedded, industrial products and such) but I don't see that working in the PC/mobile/(other general purpose device) market. Doesn't really seem like a sustainable business model long-term i.e. you won't be able to generate enough revenue to compete with companies designing chips in house.
pjmlp 2y ago
Most people definitly need more RAM and SSD storage than most Chromebooks offer, specially when most middle range phones and tablets offer the double.
Someone 2y ago
For anything that sells for over $100 or so, I think not having to pay for the ISA license is nice, but the main benefit of RISC-V relative to ARM and the like is the flexibility of being allowed to add or remove features at will.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  That's not relevant for anyone making Chromebooks (especially low to mid end ones) though. Unless you can get an equivalent RISC-V chip significantly cheaper than an off the shelf x86/ARM one why would they do it (considering the extra costs/overhead from supporting a niche platform in addition to lost sales).
whatevaa 2y ago
Hardware accelerated video decode is a must-have for any light chromebooks to gain traction.
- snvzz 2y ago
  There are many IP vendors to license video codec RTL from. RISC-V isn't a factor. Many RISC-V based SoCs already in the market have some level of hardware video codec acceleration built in.

Wytwwww 2y ago

IMHO it might be the complete opposite. Margins are low and and off the shelf ARM designs are very cheap so what's the point of making very risky investments when you can already get good enough off the shelf designs from ARM? If the licensing fee is only ~1-2% who can justify this besides Qualcomm, Apple, Nvidia, etc.? And Apple and Qualcomm only did this because they wanted to (and could afford to) design faster chips than ARM.

snvzz 2y ago
There's the option of licensing a RISC-V microarchitecture, rather than an ARM one. It has the advantage that RISC-V is an open standard, and there are many companies licenses for their own RISC-V microarchitectures, rather than being stuck with licensing ARM cores from ARM.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  From whom? I'm not sure why would anyone who can design high-end RISC-V cores would license them to someone else instead of making the chips themselves. As ARM has demonstrated that's not a very good business model (they are barely making any money compared to some of their customers).
  - snvzz 2y ago
    >From whom? From any of the IP vendors offering them. e.g. Tenstorrent has Ascalon (already licensed by LG) and Alastor, SiFive has P670 and P870, Akeana has the 5000 series.
    - Wytwwww 2y ago
      I just don't understand why would anyone who developed a competitive mid to high-end core would want to license it to anyone? What would they have to gain by doing that instead of making them themselves? Of course there are cases where the CPU is pretty much just a "cost centre" (embedded, industrial products and such) but I don't see that working in the PC/mobile/(other general purpose device) market. Doesn't really seem like a sustainable business model long-term i.e. you won't be able to generate enough revenue to compete with companies designing chips in house.

pjmlp 2y ago

Most people definitly need more RAM and SSD storage than most Chromebooks offer, specially when most middle range phones and tablets offer the double.

Someone 2y ago

For anything that sells for over $100 or so, I think not having to pay for the ISA license is nice, but the main benefit of RISC-V relative to ARM and the like is the flexibility of being allowed to add or remove features at will.

Wytwwww 2y ago
That's not relevant for anyone making Chromebooks (especially low to mid end ones) though. Unless you can get an equivalent RISC-V chip significantly cheaper than an off the shelf x86/ARM one why would they do it (considering the extra costs/overhead from supporting a niche platform in addition to lost sales).

whatevaa 2y ago

Hardware accelerated video decode is a must-have for any light chromebooks to gain traction.

snvzz 2y ago
There are many IP vendors to license video codec RTL from. RISC-V isn't a factor. Many RISC-V based SoCs already in the market have some level of hardware video codec acceleration built in.