Open Source RISC-V Is Rolling Towards the Mainstream
RISC-V, the open-source reduced instruction set architecture that’s used for everything from accelerators and microcontrollers to CPUs and GPUs, continues to be on an accelerating roll (no pun intended). When I asked Calista Redmond, CEO of RISC-V International, the nonprofit foundation in charge of the project, to put the current state of RISC-V into a single word, she didn’t hesitate.
“Velocity,” she answered.
She said that RISC-V’s pace of growth during the last 12 months was already increasing exponentially, when in February the unthinkable happened: the world’s largest chipmaker, Intel, got on board and not only signed up as a top tier premier member (and took a seat on the foundation’s board), it gave weight to its commitment by immediately entering into partnerships with five top RISC-V vendors, and pledged to invest $1 billion in the architecture.
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Not long after Ventana emerged from stealth, Baktha told me that off-the-shelf RISC-V-driven devices, from servers to cell phones, was at hand.