RISC-V, what do you think about ?

[HAL-42b]

Looks like it has already been taped out. This guy says they can ship to academia packs of 100 for an incredibly low price of 30.000$.

https://youtu.be/mD-njD2QKN0?t=40m45s

Also it appears India has officially adopted the ISA and NPTEL is spending 80 millions on it.

[legacy]

India has officially adopted the ISA and NPTEL is spending 80 millions on it.

so, Instruction Sets Want To Be Free: will be called "India core" ?

[legacy]

UC Berkeley Computer Science Professor, David Patterson reviews 50 years of computer architecture to show there is now widespread agreement on instruction set architecture ISA. Unlike most other fields, despite this harmony there is no open alternative to proprietary offerings from ARM and Intel. In his talk he proposes RISC-V RISC Five, which targets Systems on a Chip SoC

no open alternative to proprietary offerings from ARM and Intel

[legacy]

 

[MT]

I read years ago, like 10-12, a article about a CPU guru who said: the world dont need yet another cpu architecture.

[Kalvin]

I read years ago, like 10-12, a article about a CPU guru who said: the world dont need yet another cpu architecture.

I also read an CEO who said ""There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

When I first looked at this thread my thoughts we also "oh no, yet another academic architecture". After watching the Patterson's lecture I think now otherwise, there is still room for another ISA.

[aventuri]

When I first looked at this thread my thoughts we also "oh no, yet another academic architecture". After watching the Patterson's lecture I think now otherwise, there is still room for another ISA.

yes, ..one that doesn't need to win just for the technical merit (pure performance like Intel did for many years, or better ratio performance/power/money like more recently Arm) but for other reasons too, for becoming the ISA for "the rest of us"..

as always, a "new kid in town" does just need to be "good enough" and mainly with NO-STRINGS-ATTACHED! :-)

[Jeroen3]

Not reading all the papers in depth it looks like this: "arm is expensive, we can do better".

Mandatory xkcd:

[ataradov]

Not reading all the papers in depth it looks like this: "arm is expensive, we can do better".

ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, and dozens of other RISC processors are exactly the same with minor variations on the theme.

So having at least one robust and open solution will not hurt. After all, they are doing their own thing and not asking for money, so it all god in my book.

[timb]

So long standards!

And that's why you need a governing organization and certification program.

Bluetooth is a standard too, but that didn't stop Apple from making bluetooth devices that were completely incompatible with everything else and still call it Bluetooth.

What are you blathering about? All Apple devices implement Bluetooth as defined by the Bluetooth SiG.

Now, they might implement custom Bluetooth 4 (LE) protocols, for talking from say the phone to computer (Handoff, etc.) but so do hundreds of other companies! It's part of the Bluetooth LE standard!

In fact, on iOS they actually open this up and allow apps to implement any custom protocols they want. This is how third party devices talk to iPhones without having to register with Apple's Made for iPhone program (as is the case with the Lightning and formerly Dock interfaces).

What they *don't* support is Classic Bluetooth file transfer (aside from contacts and photos), on iOS at least; OS X fully supports it.

If you don't like Apple, fine, but try knowing what you're talking about before spouting off. It takes 60 seconds on Google to verify something.

[HAL-42b]

I read years ago, like 10-12, a article about a CPU guru who said: the world dont need yet another cpu architecture.

There are two reasons that might make somebody say that: 1 - He did not anticipate the end of Moore's law. 2 - He doesn't care about Open Source.

[legacy]

The problem with RISC-V is that the target markets — small companies looking for extreme customization — simply may not be big enough to ever spark much in the way of toolset development, familiarity, or cost savings. How many companies both want to build their own extremely customized architecture and can afford to hire the engineers that would do the job more ably that a default Cortex-A5 CPU from ARM? Our guess is not many. This leaves RISC-V in an uneasy no-man’s land — the engineers with the expertise to build the products are most likely familiar with other ecosystems, while the companies that would most benefit from the cost savings and customized features can’t afford the engineers.

interesting 

[edavid]

The problem with RISC-V is that the target markets — small companies looking for extreme customization — simply may not be big enough to ever spark much in the way of toolset development, familiarity, or cost savings. How many companies both want to build their own extremely customized architecture and can afford to hire the engineers that would do the job more ably that a default Cortex-A5 CPU from ARM? Our guess is not many. This leaves RISC-V in an uneasy no-man’s land — the engineers with the expertise to build the products are most likely familiar with other ecosystems, while the companies that would most benefit from the cost savings and customized features can’t afford the engineers.

interesting 

I don't agree that it has to be customized to be useful... it could be adopted by anyone who wants to develop an SoC, but doesn't want to pay the ARM tax (like the already mentioned example of the ESP8266, or the SkyTraq NavSpark GPS).

[legacy]

it could be adopted by anyone who wants to develop an SoC, but doesn't want to pay the ARM tax

in this case, ins't better OpenRISC? OpenRISC cores come under the GPL, which requires that all derivative works also be open and free, while the RISC-V authors aim to provide several freely available CPU designs, under a BSD license, but (if I am correct) the BSD license allows derivative works such as RISC-V chip designs to be either open and free like RISC-V itself, or closed and proprietary 

[MrSlack]

I'd rather pay the ARM tax myself if I was building a product.  There's enough experience out there to be able to solve any speed bumps you hit. Also TTM is likely lower on something vendored and staff fungibility is better with something more mainstream. Not all cost is production; a lot is R&D and support and you need.

I'd rather write software with Erlang at work but it's not the real cost centre.

[ataradov]

in this case, ins't better OpenRISC?

In ideal world, yes. In ideal world we also have communism.

In real world, it is not always possible to have things free and open.

[legacy]

I'd rather pay the ARM tax myself if I was building a product

this is my mind position (including gcc, which i'd rather prefer to avoid, and I pay keil and green hills myself)
I was just trying to understand their motivations

[ataradov]

I was just trying to understand their motivations

But the reality is, all those special use applications do want to avoid ARM tax, and use crap like Cortus and Xtensa. If you are picking between ARM and anything else, no contest, ARM wins. If you are picking Cortus vs. RISC-V, RISC-V wins, IMO.

[MrSlack]

I'd rather pay the ARM tax myself if I was building a product

this is my mind position (including gcc, which i'd rather prefer to avoid, and I pay keil and green hills myself)
I was just trying to understand their motivations

Indeed - can't stand GCC/gdb. LLVM+clang is my daily driver albeit on x86-64.

[legacy]

gdb

gdb is pure crap from my point of view, even if I have developed (when I was a student) a gdb-stub for both my MIPS32 board (Atlas) and 68EC000 board (IDP)

[MrSlack]

gdb

gdb is pure crap from my point of view, even if I have developed (when I was a student) a gdb-stub for both my MIPS32 board (Atlas) and 68EC000 board (IDP)

Rather you than me. About as often as I use it now is backtraces from core files. Thank goodness for valgrind, unit tests and assertions sprinkled everywhere.

[legacy]

reality is, all those special use applications do want to avoid ARM tax, and use crap like Cortus and Xtensa. If you are picking between ARM and anything else, no contest, ARM wins. If you are picking Cortus vs. RISC-V, RISC-V wins, IMO.

ah, ok, understood 

I am more "experienced" with NIOS* (Altera IP), and picoBlaze (Xilinx IP)
I admit I still have no serious job experiences with SOC and uncommon "soft cores"

I mean, when I happen to be involved with SOC I used an ARM ASIC core
and I developed all the hardware customization (VHDL side) around it
so my experiences are: ARM chip attached to an FPGA, and the ARM side usually involves Keil
while I happen to use green hills only for tasks in avionics, and I rarely used picoblaze and NIOS2

practically I used them only when I was in academy, and I sometimes happen to use them for hobby

[legacy]

Thank goodness for valgrind, unit tests and assertions sprinkled everywhere.

yes, that is a good point, as I hate "CodePurify" and "VectorCast"

[legacy]

basically you are using something like this, I have a few positive hobby experiences with ARM 

[MT]

I read years ago, like 10-12, a article about a CPU guru who said: the world dont need yet another cpu architecture.

There are two reasons that might make somebody say that: 1 - He did not anticipate the end of Moore's law. 2 - He doesn't care about Open Source.

Or maybe he just worked undercover for IBM/Microsoft who enjoy black box designs. Newer trust the words from a guru...