K
Kathleen Martin
Guest
When talking about open source, people usually talk about software. Data may be part of the conversation as well. Hardware? Not so often. Especially when it comes to complex devices like microprocessors.
However, we’re starting to see significant projects that open up hardware to a large community of individuals and companies. Perhaps none is bigger than RISC-V.
What is RISC-V?
The first thing to know about RISC-V is exactly what it is – and what it isn’t.
When we recall historical open source processor projects, a design like OpenSPARC may come to mind. In 2005, Sun Microsystems released register-transfer level (RTL) Verilog code for its UltraSPARC T1 microprocessor under the GPL v2 license.
The problem with this approach in the words of RISC-V International CTO Mark Himelstein is that “When you hand something whole cloth as open source it's hard for people to really feel ownership around it. The one thing that Linux did was everybody felt pride of ownership. That was really hard to do.”
By contrast, RISC-V is an extensible instruction set architecture. Himelstein adds, “We're totally implementation-independent. We work with other sister organizations that are nonprofit like lowRISC, CHIPS Alliance, and Open Hardware who do specific things in hardware with RISC-V.” As of early 2022, about 300 institutions and corporations were participating in the RISC-V community.
Does extensibility imply fragmentation?
Extensibility and diversity have a flip side – fragmentation of designs. Is this a concern?
Part of the answer is that, with many RISC-V cores going into small, custom designs, some degree of fragmentation isn’t really a problem. That said, as Himenstein notes, “I have a bumper sticker statement that says, ‘Innovate. Don't duplicate.’ That's the only thing that keeps us together as a community. Why do you want to go ahead and implement addition and subtraction for the thousandth time?”
That said, RISC-V International recognizes that there is value in standards, especially as RISC-V starts to see increased usage in higher performance server roles. This is needed to attract off-the-shelf software development. The trick is to manage the optionality of the architecture while still proving well-defined compatibility.
Continue reading: https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2022/5/4-things-it-leaders-should-know-about-risc-v
However, we’re starting to see significant projects that open up hardware to a large community of individuals and companies. Perhaps none is bigger than RISC-V.
What is RISC-V?
The first thing to know about RISC-V is exactly what it is – and what it isn’t.
When we recall historical open source processor projects, a design like OpenSPARC may come to mind. In 2005, Sun Microsystems released register-transfer level (RTL) Verilog code for its UltraSPARC T1 microprocessor under the GPL v2 license.
The problem with this approach in the words of RISC-V International CTO Mark Himelstein is that “When you hand something whole cloth as open source it's hard for people to really feel ownership around it. The one thing that Linux did was everybody felt pride of ownership. That was really hard to do.”
By contrast, RISC-V is an extensible instruction set architecture. Himelstein adds, “We're totally implementation-independent. We work with other sister organizations that are nonprofit like lowRISC, CHIPS Alliance, and Open Hardware who do specific things in hardware with RISC-V.” As of early 2022, about 300 institutions and corporations were participating in the RISC-V community.
Does extensibility imply fragmentation?
Extensibility and diversity have a flip side – fragmentation of designs. Is this a concern?
Part of the answer is that, with many RISC-V cores going into small, custom designs, some degree of fragmentation isn’t really a problem. That said, as Himenstein notes, “I have a bumper sticker statement that says, ‘Innovate. Don't duplicate.’ That's the only thing that keeps us together as a community. Why do you want to go ahead and implement addition and subtraction for the thousandth time?”
That said, RISC-V International recognizes that there is value in standards, especially as RISC-V starts to see increased usage in higher performance server roles. This is needed to attract off-the-shelf software development. The trick is to manage the optionality of the architecture while still proving well-defined compatibility.
Continue reading: https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2022/5/4-things-it-leaders-should-know-about-risc-v
