Tech titans hope to save money using RISC-V rather than Arm

[HEXUS]

Samsung, Nvidia and Google consider open source RISC-V for future product development.

Read more.

[Biscuit]

I thought the ARM royalty fees were pretty reasonable, all things considered?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I thought the ARM royalty fees were pretty reasonable, all things considered?

[Tabbykatze]

I thought the ARM royalty fees were pretty reasonable, all things considered?

I freaking love that XKCD and I think of that image every time someone goes "New standard to make everything better and easier!!"

[Lanky123]

I thought the ARM royalty fees were pretty reasonable, all things considered?

ARM were bought out by a big software conglomerate a couple of years ago IIRC. Possibly a few of their customers are just flexing in case the new management get any ideas about raising those pretty reasonable prices?

Edit: Softbank, that's the one, should have read the article thoroughly.

[3dcandy]

I thought the ARM royalty fees were pretty reasonable, all things considered?

Reasonable compared to what? Apple are going to move away from Intel probably because of cost reasons and they aren't exactly cheap. They have already cut ties with their gpu firm because of licensing costs.

Now I'm not saying it will be that - but when ARM is making billions it is all relative

[scaryjim]

I thought the ARM royalty fees were pretty reasonable, all things considered?

Reasonable compared to what? Apple are going to move away from Intel probably because of cost reasons and they aren't exactly cheap. ...

Erm ... yes, Apple are moving away from Intel ... they'll be developing their own CPUs using IP licensed from Arm.

However, that doesn't tell us much about costs, as it's pretty much accepted that the reason Apple are doing this is so they have complete control of their hardware stack. But if cost is a factor, it certainly implies that licensing Arm IP and then fabricating your own CPUs is cheaper than buying in bulk from Intel.

As to the XKCD/standards discussion: Arm ISAs aren't a standard. So the "competing standards" thing doesn't really ring true. It's a great strip, but I don't think it applies here.

[ohmaheid]

Will these chips affect Intel's x86 licensing?

[3dcandy]

Erm ... yes, Apple are moving away from Intel ... they'll be developing their own CPUs using IP licensed from Arm.

However, that doesn't tell us much about costs, as it's pretty much accepted that the reason Apple are doing this is so they have complete control of their hardware stack. But if cost is a factor, it certainly implies that licensing Arm IP and then fabricating your own CPUs is cheaper than buying in bulk from Intel.

As to the XKCD/standards discussion: Arm ISAs aren't a standard. So the "competing standards" thing doesn't really ring true. It's a great strip, but I don't think it applies here.

Can't see any 100% proof they will move to ARM yet. All hearsay as far as I can see...

[Tabbykatze]

Will these chips affect Intel's x86 licensing?

If they don't use any of the x86 instruction set then they won't need to license it from Intel and they will send a bitchy update saying any infringement will incur their wrath.

[DanceswithUnix]

Will these chips affect Intel's x86 licensing?

Intel don't license x86, and try and kill off anyone who has an existing license.


But overall this is old news. RISC-V is a big thing. Hennessy and Patterson's latest book seems to be based on RISC-V so I guess it is going to be taught in university comp-arch courses now. Western Digital were saying ages ago that they thought they could tune cores more closely to what they are required to do.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=H7wxDQAAQBAJ&pg

So this looks to be the Linux of processors; as much about the freedom and ability to customise and extend as it is cost. I can see PCs remaining on AMD64, phones remaining on ARM, and all those little CPUs embedded in devices like hard disks, set top boxes and watches will go RISC-V. Those embedded systems are already running Linux on ARM or MIPS so the port is fairly easy.