7 ms·
Not a hardware person but I read in an interview with Jim Keller that ISA itself doesn't matter that much for performance. >[Arguing about instruction sets] is
by fngjdflmdflg 2y ago
Not a hardware person but I read in an interview with Jim Keller that ISA itself doesn't matter that much for performance.
>[Arguing about instruction sets] is a very sad story. It's not even a couple of dozen [op-codes] - 80% of core execution is only six instructions - you know, load, store, add, subtract, compare and branch. With those you have pretty much covered it. If you're writing in Perl or something, maybe call and return are more important than compare and branch. But instruction sets only matter a little bit - you can lose 10%, or 20%, [of performance] because you're missing instructions.[0]
I've cited this article a few times already (and seen others cite it) so if this is incorrect I hope someone could correct me here. (I have to assume that you also need some sort of SIMD/Vector these days, which RVA23 has anyway, but aside from that.)
I've also read that you can port CPU cores to a different ISAs pretty easily which is what PA Semi did when Apple bought them (M1 devs). So what seems to be missing is for a bunch of senior CPU developers who worked at AMD, Intel, PA Semi/Apple or ARM to just make one for RISC-V. Not sure if that is what you meant by IP here. Tenstorrent could be one such group, and they are building RISC-V CPUs, but their focus seems to be split between that and AI accelerators. China is another good candidate.
[0] https://www.anandtech.com/show/16762/an-anandtech-interview-with-jim-keller-laziest-person-at-tesla https://www.anandtech.com/show/16762/an-anandtech-interview-...
- EncomLab 2y agoKeller is just a god tier hardware guy - his ability to leverage deep understanding and then explain incredibly complex issues in a few sentences is incredible. Intel shot themselves in the foot when they let him go.
- topspin 2y agoMost of the same was said by Jim in this live interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfFuTgnvwgs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfFuTgnvwgs
- wuschel 2y agoThanks for the answer and reference! > Not sure if that is what you meant by IP here. By IP I meant intellectual property. I was wondering how much designs or specific hardware developments that were essential for the performance boost (or: energy efficiency of chips, compute/W) as observed with the Apple M family of designs are locked down by patents.