RISC-V vs. ARM vs. x86 – What's the difference?

www.microcontrollertips.com, Apr. 13, 2021 – 

Many of the differences between RISC-V, ARM, and x86 microprocessors are subtle and relate to how memory is addressed, branches are executed, exceptions are handled, and so on. This article will consider higher-level differences and will briefly compare reduced instruction set computing (RISC) and complex instruction set computing (CISC), consider the impact those differences have on the tradeoff between power consumption and computing performance, look at how security and predicated execution are handled, how virtualization is implemented, and end with an overview of applications suitability for RISC-V, ARM, and x86 devices.

The x86 architecture from Intel is also offered on CPUs from AMD, ARM processors, and IP are offered by Arm Limited, and the RISC-V International organization is developing RISC-V. Two very significant differences between Intel, AMD, ARM, and RISC-V are in the business models and the computing architectures. Intel, AMD, and ARM are based on proprietary IP, and the companies sell and/or license their products. RISC-V is an open specification and platform; it is not an open-source processor. Open-source RISC-V cores are available, but there are also commercially licensed cores.

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