RISC-V grows globally as an alternative to Arm and its license fees

Find the Latest SoC Solutions
for... Automotive... IoT... Security... Audio... Video

venturebeat.com, Dec. 11, 2019 – 

ARM is the most successful microprocessor architecture on the planet, with its licensees shipping billions of chips a year. But a rival has emerged in the past few years called RISC-V, a new kind of royalty-free architecture started by academics. Its proponents are holding an event in the heart of Silicon Valley to tout its growth.

This week, 2,000 engineers and other professionals are attending the RISC-V Summit in San Jose, California. The leaders of RISC-V made their case that the architecture – which enables members to design processors and other chips that are compatible with software designed for it – is moving well beyond its academic roots.

Cambridge, England-based Arm has been around for decades, and its designs are used in everything from smartphones to servers. Its customers have shipped more than 150 billion chips to date, and the pace is accelerating – the company is targeting 50 billion chips in the next two years. But some chip companies – and startups like SiFive – want more design freedom and lower license costs than Arm can provide.

Click here to read more...

 Back