What is RISC-V, and why we're unlocking its potential
As you may have read, we recently announced our commitment to accelerate the availability of the RISC-V open-standard ecosystem and platform by signing on as founding members of a new project and a new company.
RISC-V software enablement
At the end of May, we announced the launch of the RISC-V Software Ecosystem (RISE) Project alongside Google, Intel, NXP, Nvidia, Red Hat, Samsung and others to advance software adoption.
As a member, we will contribute financially and provide engineering talent to address specific software deliverables aligned on by the RISE Technical Steering Committee. RISE will aim to enable a robust software ecosystem specifically for application processors that includes compilers, toolchains, system libraries, kernel, virtualization, programming languages, Linux distribution integration, firmware and tools (debug, profiling, emulation, simulation).
RISC-V hardware enablement
And recently, we announced our plans to accelerate RISC-V adoption through a joint investment in a company with semiconductor industry leaders Robert Bosch, Infineon Technologies, Nordic Semiconductor and NXP Semiconductors.
The company will seek to enable compatible RISC-V based products, provide reference architectures, and help establish solutions widely used in the industry. Initial application focus will be automotive, with an eventual expansion to include mobile and IoT.
By joining forces with other leading semiconductor industry players, the company aims to drive the RISC-V ecosystem and enable next-generation hardware development. The company calls on industry associations, leaders and governments to join forces in support of this initiative, which will help increase the resilience of the broader semiconductor ecosystem.
What is RISC-V?
As original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and silicon vendors look for ways to innovate, reduce costs and stay ahead of the competition, many are now turning to RISC-V, the open standard instruction set architecture (ISA).
The development of the RISC-V standard began in 2010 when researchers at the University of California, Berkeley created a simple, yet powerful ISA that could be used by anyone with minimal restrictions. It was released in 2015 as a free and open-standard ISA that allows anyone to design, manufacture and sell processors based on the RISC-V specification — without royalties or license fees. This opened the door for a variety of companies to develop their own RISC-V processors, allowing them to innovate in ways that would have been impossible before for a wide variety of product categories and applications.
Because it’s open standard, architects, designers and developers can modify and improve upon the existing ISA codebase as needed. This flexibility has allowed teams to experiment with architectures and chip designs within the same ISA and has enabled a collaborative environment where successes and failures are shared for mutual benefit.
These advantages are quickly being recognized across industries, and businesses have been taking advantage of RISC-V cores for all kinds of applications including:
- Artificial intelligence (AI) image sensors,
- Security management,
- AI computing,
- Machine control systems for 5G networks, and
- More sophisticated storage, graphics and machine learning applications.
The 3 main advantages of RISC-V
- Flexibility: RISC-V offers a unique set of features that allow users to customize and optimize both software and hardware for specific use cases, resulting in faster development cycles and better design tradeoffs for performance, power and area.
- Control: This open ISA provides designers and developers with greater control over their computing environments, allowing them to fine-tune their systems without relying on third parties or incurring additional license fees associated with proprietary architectures.
- Visibility: The open-standard nature of RISC-V also means that developers have more visibility into the codebase, making it easier to understand the roadmap and identify potential security risks before they become an issue.
RISC-V offers end-to-end advantages
To dive deeper into why RISC-V is important, not just to us — but the entire value chain — we spoke to Qualcomm Technologies Senior Vice President of Product Management, Ziad Asghar. He drives our one technology roadmap so OEMs can work with Qualcomm Technologies to develop devices that talk to each other.
Francisco Cheng (FC): Why is RISC-V succeeding?
Ziad Asghar (ZA): Initially there was a need for an alternate to legacy architectures, which can be quite rigid. So, RISC-V came in as something new and fresh, offering a flexible, scalable and open architecture. As RISC-V products have entered the market, the ISA has been proven out and the ecosystem has taken notice.
Qualcomm Technologies has been integrating RISC-V into our products since 2019. And as OEMs develop final products based on it, that inspires even more innovation. This forward movement invigorates the ecosystem in a very solid way that the whole industry can coalesce around. I think that momentum is only going to grow.
FC: Why is Qualcomm Technologies interested in RISC-V?
ZA: RISC-V clearly has amazing potential. For a product developer, it eliminates the issue of being tied to the limited portfolio of cores available from a proprietary ISA. And it eradicates the need to invest significant license fees for the development of a new processor using a proprietary ISA. RISC-V opens up the ability for any company in the world to be able to develop that processor without fees or royalties.
The really cool part is that product developers can customize RISC-V so they can precisely design to the goals of the end product. That openness, flexibility and scalability is extremely attractive to us and other companies too.
FC: What kind of use cases make most sense for RISC-V?
ZA: RISC-V makes sense for pretty much all use cases, because instead of having to choose from a given fixed number of processor cores, it allows you to optimize for specific use cases. This ability to customize the cores for what you need means the cores can be optimized for what you care most about whether that be power, performance, or area.
Similarly, RISC-V also allows you to introduce custom instructions. And then you could, for example, develop instructions that lend themselves to improve AI and ML-like applications.
Lastly, RISC-V drives innovation and competition, so the consumer wins most of all. This openness allows differentiation, which means consumers can get a better and more pristine experience.
FC: How has Qualcomm Technologies worked with RISC-V?
ZA: Not only have we invested in multiple RISC-V based companies, but we have also been integrating these cores into our products since 2019. For example, for the launch of the Snapdragon 865 platform, we integrated RISC-V microcontrollers, because we needed something very specific for control purposes within a block inside our chip. This gave us the opportunity to design exactly what we intended.
FC: How does this tie to Qualcomm Technologies’ business strategy?
ZA: The most exciting part for us at Qualcomm Technologies is the ability to start with an open instruction set. We have the internal capabilities to create our own cores — we have a best-in-class custom central processing unit (CPU) team, and with RISC-V, we can develop, customize and scale easily.
We can use this approach at any time across our many businesses, from mobile, to augmented reality, to automotive and the internet of things.
RISC-V also helps us create solutions with lower power consumption and better performance. Consumers want longer battery life and snappy device experiences. Basically, RISC-V gives all of us in the ecosystem the ability to differentiate in a more meaningful fashion.
FC: How do you envision RISC-V in the future? Do you think it'll emerge as a full ecosystem?
ZA: It’s easy to see why RISC-V can be a very good alternative to proprietary ISAs: One that allows that flexibility and growth trajectory. While the legacy ISAs have plateaued to some extent, RISC-V is on a steep upward growth trajectory. As an open standard, the sheer number of companies that can integrate and optimize RISC-V cores means that its potential can far exceed legacy ISAs.
