Is The RISC-V Architecture A Breakthrough Direction Of Domestic Chips In The Future?

Because of the open source, the RISC-V gave it to domestic productionCPUThe chip has opened a new path, but because of open source, this road will also go extremely difficult.

Open source is neither free, nor does it mean that there are no restrictions.

First of all, domestic is doing RISC-VprocessorThe /IP nuclear company and scientific research institutions are as many as dozens of hundreds, and there are open source free, and some commercial behaviors are also available. Companies involved in business are made by selling RISC-V IP nuclei.

Instruction setting architecture, to put it plainly, when the chip executes the program, translate the software language into the standard specifications of hardware instructions.Although the RISC-V architecture is open source, some key micro-architecture and related technologies are still protected by patents.This means that during the development process, these protected technologies need to be avoided, so as not to fall into patent disputes.

For engineers, technical problems may be solved, but there is still a big problem in open source, that is, ecology.It can be said that without ecology, there will be no users.After decades of development,computerEnd formed an ecosystem of X86+Windows, and AAA (smartphones, tablets and other fields have formed AAA (ARM+Android/Apple) ecosystem.The ecosystem includes the instruction set architecture, chips, operating systems, software applications, and the construction of upstream and downstream manufacturers. The establishment of the entire ecosystem needs to invest a lot of money, consume a lot of time, and continue trial and error.Once the ecosystem is completed, it will form a very strong barrier, and it is almost impossible to break this barrier.

Open source means that all organizations and individuals can modify and expand based on the RISC-V instruction set, and develop their own chip products.This will eventually lead to the RISC-V architecture or ecological highly fragmented. Ecology in various fields and even companies is split, and it is difficult to form a truly unified ecosystem.In contrast, X86 and ARM have absolute giants leading and developing the industry, and the ecology is highly unified.

Although Risc-V is facing many problems compared to mature X86 and ARM, I still think it is a good breakthrough in domestic processors.

Faced with the irreplaceable barriers of X86 and ARM, RISC-V was born.It can be said that the Risc-V was born in a duel, and the instruction set the open source to the key to X86 and ARM.In addition to the characteristics of open source, RISC-V has the characteristics of simple architecture, low power consumption, modular design, tool chain and compiler rapid development. It provides a good soil for many startups born in the IoT era.Let the RISC-V ecosystem develop rapidly.

Processors based on RISC-V instruction set architecture are widely used in the fields of data centers, cloud computing, and high-performance computing. Alibaba and Amazon are independently designed chips based on the RISC-V core;AIIn terms of Risc-V.In terms of 5G communication base stations, the Internet of Things, etc., RISC-V also emerged.It can be said that RISC-V basically covers chip applications in the frontier field of technology.

In recent years, CPU shipments with the RISC-V architecture as the core have increased year by year at a considerable speed. Among the 10 billion RISC-V nuclear shipments worldwide, Chinese companies account for about 50%of the company.

The last big problem is ecology, and ecology is also the most frequent words in the domestic chip industry's various meetings in recent years.The China Open instruction Ecology (RISC-V) Alliance announced that its establishment is also designed to accelerate domestic ecological construction, and domestic companies' contribution in technology and applications is increasing.

At this stage, RISC-V and X86 and ARM are not comprehensive and three-dimensional than ecology and markets. The shipments and growth rates of RISC-V are much higher than the X86 and ARMs of the same period.

thenGoogleWhen he exited China, many people's attitude would rather see the two devils in tug of war, and did not want to see a angel dancing.

forDomestic chipCompared to the long -term monopoly abroad,I am more happy to see the domestic companies' groups of magic dance, because the other side of the group of demon dance is full of flowers.