Five business that produce semiconductors for smart devices, vehicles and more have announced that they will form a company developed to advance the open source RISC-V architecture, in a move widely viewed as being created to reduce their reliance on licensed technology from Arm.
The companies– Qualcomm, Robert Bosch, Infineon Technologies, NXP Semiconductors and Nordic Semiconductors– have yet to name this joint venture, however said in a declaration provided Friday that the company will be registered in Germany, which its focus will be on providing reference architectures and developing industry services. The preliminary focus, according to the statement, will be on the automotive industry, but strategies are in place to broaden into mobile and IoT use cases.
“The production of a one-stop-shop environment where consumers can select turnkey properties will reinforce the adoption of RISC-V throughout many European markets,” stated NXP CTO Lars Reger, in the statement.RISC-V is an open source
guideline set architecture for processors, originally created at the University of California at Berkeley. The idea was to create a totally open source processor system, with plainly discussed design choices, in contrast to exclusive designs. It’s created to be versatile, for the best possible series of prospective chip styles and applications, and is offered royalty-free, which is a crucial consideration for companies used to licensing innovation from business like Arm.”At its core, RISC-V encourages innovation, permitting any business to develop advanced, personalized hardware based on an open-source direction set,”the business’joint statement stated.”Further adoption of the RISC-V innovation will promote much more diversity in the electronic devices market– decreasing the barriers to entry for smaller and emergent companies and allowing increased scalability for established business.”Arm’s primacy in mobile chips Arm’s primacy on the planet of mobile semiconductors hasn’t endeared it to some of its clients, and the company has been embroiled in a legal battle with Qualcomm for roughly a year over a licensing disagreement.(Qualcomm has also invested in a start-up called SiFive, a chip designer aiming to leverage RISC-V commercially.)The creation of the as-yet-unnamed RISC-V venture is being widely seen as an effort to create an alternative to doing business practically specifically with Arm, possibly utilizing open source hardware creates to minimize costs. Furthermore, even Arm’s chief competitors in the silicon market have actually gotten involved with RISC-V, with Intel contributing $1 billion to foundry services supporting open source chips in 2022. Copyright © 2023 IDG Communications, Inc. Source
