Nvidia-Arm Deal a Boon for RISC-V?

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www.hpcwire.com, Oct. 26, 2020 – 

The $40 billion blockbuster acquisition deal that will bring chip maker Arm into the Nvidia corporate family could provide a boost for the competing RISC-V architecture.

As regulators in the U.S., China and the European Union begin scrutinizing the impact of the blockbuster deal on semiconductor industry competition and innovation, the deal has at the very least shown a light on the open-source RISC-V architecture and its growing ecosystem. To that extent, it could become a viable alternative for a growing number of hardware acceleration use cases.

As we have reported, market analysts note that Nvidia also has a stake in the RISC-V architecture, and leveraging its ownership of Arm against a rival chip architecture would ultimately prove self-defeating.

The organization behind RISC-V has attempted to play down the Nvidia-Arm deal, which was announced Sept. 14, noting the chip sector is accustomed to disruption, which can fuel competition that brings chip innovations.

"With any disruption, there are discussions about the ripple effects on the industry," Calista Redmond, CEO of RISC-V International, noted in a blog posted shortly after the Nvidia-Arm deal was announced.

"Many people are wondering whether companies will be investing more heavily in RISC-V as a result of our open model for licensing and collaboration or due to the potential limits placed by companies or nations on proprietary architectures," Redmond added.

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