5 ms·

Surely arm is a better choice?

by matt-p 2y ago

cmrdporcupine 2y ago
RISC-V's vector extension ("V") is markedly "Cray"-like.
daveguy 2y ago
RISC-V is an open standard. ARM still needs to be licensed. The world is abandoning rent seekers.
- briandear 2y ago
  Is ARM better than RiSC? How many RISC computers can I go buy right now at the local Carrefour here in Barcelona? Weird definition of “abandoning.”
  - daveguy 2y ago
    Both ARM and RISC-V are Reduced Instruction Set Compute (RISC) instead of Complex Instruction Set Compute (CISC aka x86) architectures. So it's more about the tooling that makes one better than the other. And like all open source, the tooling will be better over time as people and organizations recognize they get more back out of contributing to open systems.
    - tgv 2y ago
      That's way too optimistic. If it's like "all open source," it will have some improvements, forks and then nothing. There are only so many people who can contribute to chip development, and they all have jobs.
      - hajile 2y ago
        LLVM and GCC succeed because it’s cheaper to add support to a couple open tools than build your own competing compiler.
      - daveguy 2y ago
        Wait. I thought the Musk-Trump regime was going to usher in a glorious post-scarcity economy based on the genius and purity of crypto?
  - 6SixTy 2y ago
    RISC-V is probably no different than ARM at it's core. Also, both of them are RISC ISAs. Right now, you are far more likely to use RISC-V and not know it than to knowingly interact with RISC-V directly. For example, since about 2015, Nvidia has used RISC-V as an onboard controller for their GPUs.
    - 3eb7988a1663 2y ago
      Western Digital also announced they were looking (have already?) to move to RISC-V. If you manufacture items at scale, getting away from ARM licensing costs per unit makes financial sense. Especially if you already have in-house expertise who can design chips tuned to your specific requirements.
  - timeon 2y ago
    I'm not native English speaker but I think that the current and near situation in local Carrefour would be influenced by “abandoned” rather than “abandoning”.
ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
Depends on what criteria you use for "better". ARM is surely more advanced technologically, but RISC-V may be a more future-proof decision as you're not necessarily tied in to one company that may change their licensing costs in the future.
- snvzz 2y ago
  Mandatory Light/Dark side of the force reference. ARM will get you power faster. But in the long run, RISC-V will be the most powerful.
  - ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
    "Execution out-of-order you want, hmmmm?" - Yoda
johnnyjeans 2y ago
Not if your goal is to decouple from the US.
- CharlesW 2y ago
  ARM Holdings is a subsidiary of SoftBank Group, and so not a US company. In what other sense is it coupled with the US?
nabla9 2y ago
ISA differences are very small. Not enough choose one over another when there are more important issues at stake.
boredatoms 2y ago
The EU is better off trying to build a local capability, riscv is the best bet as you dont need an architecture/ISA license or dependencies on geopolitics
6SixTy 2y ago
Choosing RISC-V here is more about how much soverienty a country has over the IP than anything else here. The US can probably consider most-all ARM IP to be dual use technology and immediately deny use of it. RISC-V being based out of Switzerland, the ISA being under a permissive Creative Commons license, and most software tools being FOSS is definitely why it's being adopted here. It's completely isolated from all geopolitics.
- 3836293648 2y ago
  And non-Apple Silicon is British?
  - turtletontine 2y ago
    ARM Holdings is British. Anyone making ARM cores (Apple, Qualcomm, Amazon’s Graviton…) is paying licensing fees to a British company. Arm even tried to cancel Qualcomm’s licensing agreement back in the fall. Using RISC V entirely circumvents not only royalty payments, but legal battles like that (frivolous or not).
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - 3836293648 2y ago
      And ARM makes reference designs which most ARM chips just use.
- Someone 2y ago
  > The US can probably consider most-all ARM IP to be dual use technology and immediately deny use of it. The US (certainly the current US) can do that, but (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings): “Arm Holdings plc (formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a Japanese-owned British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England”
  - 2y ago
xbmcuser 2y ago
It is not for the rest of the world who are banned from using advanced US technology so best for the world is for China to get to parity on node size as well as rest of the world to adopt RISC-V.
simne 2y ago
When making sophisticated big projects, usually weighting many considerations, not just architecture. Even more, some considerations could have more weight then architecture for particular case. Examples are good compiler/libs/frameworks, some specific software, good support, experience on similar contracts, big number of professionals with military clearance. That's why some long time IBM won most govt contracts on supercomputers. But once IBM decided, govt is not interest enough client and after that moment, most contracts won by Intel.
- simne 2y ago
  Also in Intel case at 8086 years, very important was large number of support chips, greatly surpass any concurrent. Examples was video chips, io chips, MMU, numerical coprocessor. At that time (8086) Intel produced even RAM and ROM chips, so govt could buy all from one contractor, and this is also good in some cases.
rsynnott 2y ago
ARM Holdings is, ah, not necessarily the easiest company to work with. See the Qualcomm saga: https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/06/arm_qualcomm_nuvia/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/06/arm_qualcomm_nuvia/ The _current_ big EU supercomputer initiative does use ARM designs (https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/14/sipearl_rhea1_specs/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/14/sipearl_rhea1_specs/ ), but you wouldn’t necessarily want to be totally dependent on them if you can help it.
hajile 2y ago
ARM just sued their largest customer. ARM just announced they are manufacturing their own chips for the first time further threatening their customers (despite testifying the exact opposite in court a couple months ago). Since SoftBank took over, their company has shifted and proved that when a standard is controlled by one company, there will eventually be issues. Switching to RISC means those issues won’t ever happen again.

Surely arm is a better choice?

by matt-p 2y ago

Surely arm is a better choice?

cmrdporcupine 2y ago

RISC-V's vector extension ("V") is markedly "Cray"-like.

daveguy 2y ago

RISC-V is an open standard. ARM still needs to be licensed. The world is abandoning rent seekers.

briandear 2y ago
Is ARM better than RiSC? How many RISC computers can I go buy right now at the local Carrefour here in Barcelona? Weird definition of “abandoning.”
- daveguy 2y ago
  Both ARM and RISC-V are Reduced Instruction Set Compute (RISC) instead of Complex Instruction Set Compute (CISC aka x86) architectures. So it's more about the tooling that makes one better than the other. And like all open source, the tooling will be better over time as people and organizations recognize they get more back out of contributing to open systems.
  - tgv 2y ago
    That's way too optimistic. If it's like "all open source," it will have some improvements, forks and then nothing. There are only so many people who can contribute to chip development, and they all have jobs.
    - hajile 2y ago
      LLVM and GCC succeed because it’s cheaper to add support to a couple open tools than build your own competing compiler.
    - daveguy 2y ago
      Wait. I thought the Musk-Trump regime was going to usher in a glorious post-scarcity economy based on the genius and purity of crypto?
- 6SixTy 2y ago
  RISC-V is probably no different than ARM at it's core. Also, both of them are RISC ISAs. Right now, you are far more likely to use RISC-V and not know it than to knowingly interact with RISC-V directly. For example, since about 2015, Nvidia has used RISC-V as an onboard controller for their GPUs.
  - 3eb7988a1663 2y ago
    Western Digital also announced they were looking (have already?) to move to RISC-V. If you manufacture items at scale, getting away from ARM licensing costs per unit makes financial sense. Especially if you already have in-house expertise who can design chips tuned to your specific requirements.
- timeon 2y ago
  I'm not native English speaker but I think that the current and near situation in local Carrefour would be influenced by “abandoned” rather than “abandoning”.

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago

Depends on what criteria you use for "better". ARM is surely more advanced technologically, but RISC-V may be a more future-proof decision as you're not necessarily tied in to one company that may change their licensing costs in the future.

snvzz 2y ago
Mandatory Light/Dark side of the force reference. ARM will get you power faster. But in the long run, RISC-V will be the most powerful.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  "Execution out-of-order you want, hmmmm?" - Yoda

johnnyjeans 2y ago

Not if your goal is to decouple from the US.

CharlesW 2y ago
ARM Holdings is a subsidiary of SoftBank Group, and so not a US company. In what other sense is it coupled with the US?

nabla9 2y ago

ISA differences are very small. Not enough choose one over another when there are more important issues at stake.

boredatoms 2y ago

The EU is better off trying to build a local capability, riscv is the best bet as you dont need an architecture/ISA license or dependencies on geopolitics

6SixTy 2y ago

Choosing RISC-V here is more about how much soverienty a country has over the IP than anything else here. The US can probably consider most-all ARM IP to be dual use technology and immediately deny use of it. RISC-V being based out of Switzerland, the ISA being under a permissive Creative Commons license, and most software tools being FOSS is definitely why it's being adopted here. It's completely isolated from all geopolitics.

3836293648 2y ago
And non-Apple Silicon is British?
- turtletontine 2y ago
  ARM Holdings is British. Anyone making ARM cores (Apple, Qualcomm, Amazon’s Graviton…) is paying licensing fees to a British company. Arm even tried to cancel Qualcomm’s licensing agreement back in the fall. Using RISC V entirely circumvents not only royalty payments, but legal battles like that (frivolous or not).
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - 3836293648 2y ago
    And ARM makes reference designs which most ARM chips just use.
Someone 2y ago
> The US can probably consider most-all ARM IP to be dual use technology and immediately deny use of it. The US (certainly the current US) can do that, but (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings): “Arm Holdings plc (formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a Japanese-owned British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England”
- 2y ago

xbmcuser 2y ago

It is not for the rest of the world who are banned from using advanced US technology so best for the world is for China to get to parity on node size as well as rest of the world to adopt RISC-V.

simne 2y ago

When making sophisticated big projects, usually weighting many considerations, not just architecture. Even more, some considerations could have more weight then architecture for particular case. Examples are good compiler/libs/frameworks, some specific software, good support, experience on similar contracts, big number of professionals with military clearance. That's why some long time IBM won most govt contracts on supercomputers. But once IBM decided, govt is not interest enough client and after that moment, most contracts won by Intel.

simne 2y ago
Also in Intel case at 8086 years, very important was large number of support chips, greatly surpass any concurrent. Examples was video chips, io chips, MMU, numerical coprocessor. At that time (8086) Intel produced even RAM and ROM chips, so govt could buy all from one contractor, and this is also good in some cases.

rsynnott 2y ago

ARM Holdings is, ah, not necessarily the easiest company to work with. See the Qualcomm saga: https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/06/arm_qualcomm_nuvia/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/06/arm_qualcomm_nuvia/ The _current_ big EU supercomputer initiative does use ARM designs (https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/14/sipearl_rhea1_specs/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/14/sipearl_rhea1_specs/ ), but you wouldn’t necessarily want to be totally dependent on them if you can help it.

hajile 2y ago

ARM just sued their largest customer. ARM just announced they are manufacturing their own chips for the first time further threatening their customers (despite testifying the exact opposite in court a couple months ago). Since SoftBank took over, their company has shifted and proved that when a standard is controlled by one company, there will eventually be issues. Switching to RISC means those issues won’t ever happen again.