Support for the future of RISC-V continues to gain momentum. The open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) derived from RISC, RISC-V aims to compete with Arm and other major ISA standards on the market. The resources required for this will be provided by the five major chip manufacturers.Giants join forces for RISC-V
Five big players in the chip market have formed a new alliance to popularize the RISC-V architecture and aim to promote royalty-free technology as a viable (and inexpensive) option for next-gen hardware development. The new company, which will be established in Germany, aims to make RISC-V a suitable advanced technology for new devices and microchips.
The RISC-V partnership will receive funding and know-how from Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductors and Qualcomm Technologies. The new company will work as a “single source” of reference designs for new RISC-V chips available to a wider industry. Qualcomm says initial applications will focus on automotive solutions, while a “final” expansion is planned in the mobile and IoT businesses.
Details on the new venture are still unclear, as the company must get the necessary regulatory approvals first. As confirmed by Infineon, the RISC-V partnership will not produce any actual chips, but will instead operate more like a consulting firm. The company will produce new chip designs based on the RISC-V ISA, giving third-party organizations a chance to adopt them as a new industry standard.
Qualcomm said greater adoption of RISC-V technology could promote diversity in the electronics industry, reducing barriers to entry for smaller companies and startups. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that Qualcomm, a chip manufacturer based on the Arm architecture, is in this partnership. As it is known, Qualcomm is in a legal dispute with British chip designer ARM over licensing issues and may prefer RISC-V architecture instead of Arm for new Snapdragon chips in the future.
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