
RISC V: A new blueprint for microprocessors challenges the industry’s giants - jkuria
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/10/03/a-new-blueprint-for-microprocessors-challenges-the-industrys-giants
======
m0zg
Gentle reminder: you can buy dual core RISC-V chips today for $9, FPU, DSP,
and TPU included, with WiFi onboard if you buy a module:
[https://kendryte.com/](https://kendryte.com/). It won't run Linux (no MMU),
but it will run FreeRTOS and TensorFlow Lite, straight from their GitHub.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_It won 't run Linux (no MMU)_

How are processes isolated from one another if there is no MMU? Is there some
other form of memory protection? That doesn't seem likely?

Not having process isolation really limits the applicability of the chip.

~~~
kbumsik
It doesn't have processes.

This looks like to be a bare-metal (or RTOS) embedded system. It usually is
for running a single application so isolation between processes doesn't make
much sense. FreeRTOS doesn't even have concept of process neither, but tasks,
which is similar to threads with preemption and deadline.

Furthermore MMU is often avoided in embedded systems because it violates hard
real-time requirements: Translation table walking can take place while an
interrupt occurs so it causes unpredictable worst-case execution time.

In case of ARM Cortex-M and R series they have Memory Protection Unit (MPU)
instead of MMU to protect critical memory region.

------
azinman2
For better or worse, this will become a basis that the semiconductor industry
will heavily shift to homegrown chips in China. As problematic as Intel maybe,
it still is a major source of cash, talent, and jobs. That will be eroded over
time.

~~~
microcolonel
The PRC still largely does not manufacture or design semiconductors.

RISC-V is popular in that young industry because it is credible and meets
their criteria, and that value is similar elsewhere (particularly in India).

> _For better or worse..._

If the world would let the PRC gain a lead in semiconductors, it would be an
unequivocal moral failure; I say this with great personal warmth for Chinese
people. The world is a more grotesque and unfree place with every gain of the
CCP.

~~~
lnsru
China has all the resources to lead in semiconductors. How can you stop this?
Companies are being happily sold to Chinese investors all the time: Kuka,
Putzmeister, Volvo, etc. Geely slowly takes over German carmakers:
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-geely-
electric/da...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-geely-
electric/daimler-to-develop-smart-brand-together-with-geely-idUSKCN1R90NG)

Just wait couple decades...

~~~
microcolonel
> _Just wait couple decades..._

This is why I'm not just waiting, I'm getting richer, and I will continue not
to do business or politics benefitting the CCP whenever possible.

That's all anyone can do. You can't help but lose if you give up before
starting. If things go well, I can do more, maybe go help secure trade secrets
in Taiwan, or document CCP controlled forign land and infrastructure
purchases; if not, at least I don't see a coward in the mirror.

~~~
rusk
As quixotic as this all may sound, I genuinely appreciate this kind of candour
about motivation. It's quite rare, more often to see these kinds of actions
justified in terms of specious economic or technical arguments. It's as if
people have become afraid of admitting that personal morality drives some of
their decisions.

~~~
microcolonel
> _It 's as if people have become afraid of admitting that personal morality
> drives some of their decisions._

I think the fear is a bit justified. Admitting that you have moral principles
means that people can hold you to them, and in fact that you _will be held to
them_ , as nobody is perfect. People with no moral principles can't be held to
account, since they don't participate in morality! :- )

~~~
rusk
Yeah, it's just a pity though, because while individual efforts are laudable,
they are insignificant unless coordinated as a part of a whole, so without
this kind of honest public discourse it's hard to feel how we can get
anywhere.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/fFw5T](http://archive.is/fFw5T)

------
ur-whale
RISC-V is, among other things, a single shining ray of hope that we might
actually be able to build a truly secure computing platform from the ground up
instead of the backdoor-riddled stacks we have today.

~~~
skybrian
Maybe, but I don't see why vendors making RISC-V chips are inherently more
trustworthy? There are lots of dodgy vendors building standardized parts. It
seems like they'd be easy to counterfeit?

~~~
traverseda
Could you use side-channel power analysis to ensure a chip is on-spec?

~~~
zaarn
No, the backdoor can use some activation mechanism on chip to avoid drawing
power when not in use, then the additional power draw will be so low that it's
essentially undetectable.

Tbh you'd have a hard time since either you're trying to measure a few
milliwatts in a very noisy environment (either very low wattage, so various
effects dominate, or high wattage, where your equipment will quickly get very
very expensive).

~~~
traverseda
I've worked with the chip-whisperer in the past, it's definitely a noisy
environment.

------
no1youknowz
Coreteks did a really nice video on Risc V.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67KW4t42SZk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67KW4t42SZk)

------
caniszczyk
Consider joining and supporting the RISC-V Foundation!
[https://riscv.org](https://riscv.org)

------
O5vYtytb
I don't buy the argument that having a bunch of vendors extend the ISA makes
it more secure. I think we would end up with an ecosystem with a lot of custom
extensions and functionality that will end up exposing more attack surfaces
and that would make it difficult to know if your device is affected or not.

~~~
lbotos
You are highlighting the risk of fragmentation causing security problems. I
think that's valid.

I think a lot of people are talking about "closed source" security as in
nation-state level actors and "backdoors":
[https://www.csoonline.com/article/3220476/researchers-say-
no...](https://www.csoonline.com/article/3220476/researchers-say-now-you-too-
can-disable-intel-me-backdoor-thanks-to-the-nsa.html)

------
known
"Alibaba, an e-commerce giant based in Hangzhou, announced its first RISC-V
chip in July"

------
miohtama
What did make RISC-V a game changer? Why did not any open source chip enjoy
such a success before?

~~~
deepnotderp
Timing (trade wars, ending days of Moore's law, intels incompetence as of
late), marketing (ucb/Stanford), few outright dumb decisions (e.g. no branch
delay slots), money (DARPA), industrial support (nvidia, western digital,
esperanto etc.)

~~~
0x64
Moore’s law is pretty well on track – transistor density has been steadily
increasing for decades now, and still is.

~~~
Symmetry
Things are still shrinking but the tempo seems to be slowing down a bit even
at TSMC. Maybe we'll get our full 6 remaining doublings down to 9Å[1] but I'm
not sure I would count on it, especially given that the cost of a cutting edge
fab is also going up exponentially. Even if features stop shrinking that
doesn't mean that price per transistor will stop going down. And we're very
far from the theoretical limits of energy per computation so I tend to expect
we'll move to some other computational substrate in the future.

[1][https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node](https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node)

[2][http://www.futrfab.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Small-
Volu...](http://www.futrfab.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Small-Volume-
Technology-Fabrication_new.pdf)

------
pabl0rg
I’m surprised the Economist doesn’t know ARM is British!

~~~
chrisseaton
It isn't anymore - it became Japanese a couple of years ago.

~~~
ksec
Chris, would you still consider, Jaguar, Bentley, Land Rover British?

Because I think ownerships changes with time, but most of these brand,
thinking, management are still very much British.

~~~
chrisseaton
But this isn't an article about corporate culture - it's an article about the
nationality of the company which owns the IP.

> are built around designs, known as instruction-set architectures (isas),
> which are owned either by Intel, an American giant, or by Arm, a Japanese
> one

Who _owns_ the ARM IP? A Japanese company. Not a British one.

If you asked me if ARM has a British history and possibly culture, then yes
(it certainly pays like a British company!) But that wasn't the context - the
context was who effectively owns the IP.

So what do you think is more likely? The Economist are mistaken about the
history of the company, or they were using a different context, the one they
actually make explicit in the article?

~~~
ksec
I was just wondering from a British Point of view whether you still consider
them to be British or not.

>Who owns the ARM IP? A Japanese company. Not a British one.

ARM, a British Company, owned by Japanese Funds.

Because to me that is like saying HSBC is owned by Chinese if HSBC had Ping An
and other shadow investors owning majority of it, but certainly HSBC is a
British Company right?

P.S - I means no offence in case any Brits got the wrong end of the stick.
Just genuinely curious.

~~~
chrisseaton
> I was just wondering from a British Point of view whether you still consider
> them to be British or not.

I think they're culturally British. I don't think they are British owned or
that their IP is British owned. Which was the context of the discussion.

------
fithisux
Maybe we need a new blueprint for devices and run away from the existing
bloated blobby drivers.

------
thepra
I wonder where's AMD... did they omit it?

~~~
als0
AMD aren’t part of the RISC-V foundation.

------
person_of_color
Anyone hiring an ARM refugee willing to work on RISC-V?

~~~
mindentropy
I too having been asking around. Did not have much luck. Most of the
requirements are in chip design. Software contribution is done by the open
source community. Corporations are contributing to open source but the team
size is very small.

~~~
person_of_color
Have you tried SiFive?

~~~
mindentropy
I have tried but I don't see software vacancies. Most are for hardware
verification and validation requirements.

I don't they are interesting in hiring for remote positions.

------
mikece
I have an off-topic rant: I know it's "RISC FIVE" and not "RISC VEE" but as
long as companies use letters to represent numbers it's my opinion they
forfeit the right to complain that people aren't saying it right. Apple
finally gave up and changed Mac OS "ex" to macOS; everyone else should follow
suit.

~~~
leggomylibro
I'm not sure it would be less confusing to name the ISA 'RISC' instead of
'RISC-V'. The 'R' in 'ARM' stands for 'RISC'.

~~~
DannyB2
Increment the letter V by three positions and call it RISC-Y.

~~~
jecel
Done: [https://github.com/pulp-platform/riscv](https://github.com/pulp-
platform/riscv)

