
ARM: “RISC-V Architecture: Understand the Facts” - hlandau
https://riscv-basics.com/
======
gruturo
If this article is genuine (there are many comments arguing it might not be) I
would consider it an excellent endorsement of RISC-V. If a company with an
awesome engineering, like I consider ARM to be, is scared to the point of
authoring some FUD, RISC-V has to be _really_ promising!

~~~
TomVDB
When I search for "risc-v basics arm" in Google, this article comes up first
as a paid Ad.

So somebody is paying google to make this thing come up on top.

~~~
delinka
Can you screenshot that and link to the screenshot? I don't see it marked as
an ad.

~~~
TomVDB
I wish I did. It doesn't come up like that anymore.

~~~
chithanh
Someone on reddit made a screenshot
[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/8xbqlv/arm_launches_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/8xbqlv/arm_launches_facts_campaign_against_riscv_ie_fud/e22fnto/)
[https://imgur.com/a/U2XGVee](https://imgur.com/a/U2XGVee)

~~~
TomVDB
Yes, I got the same one!

------
jchw
Some of the "facts" here are pretty weak. The "years of security expertise" is
not really a feature I'd be proud of given the recent processor-level
vulnerabilities that in fact, paint a very different picture about how
traditional processor vendors treat security.

Even if there is some validity here, this is in surprisingly poor taste. I've
known people who have worked for ARM. I wonder what they think about this.

~~~
cptskippy
How would an open source processor be better from a security perspective? I
might still be a little shell shocked from my attempts to setup a MythTV Box
10 years ago but this is what's running through my head:

"Did you RTFM?"

"Debain CPU doesn't have that issue."

"Just disable the ALUs in firmware, they're not necessary in modern processors
anyways."

"That's been patched, just download processor v2.3.4.432 and send it to your
FAB, they should spin you a new CPU in 8-12 months."

~~~
jchw
Some open source projects are different. A lot of them do not cater to end
users directly. But if you want to talk about open source security, take a
look at how OpenBSD handles issues; they definitely aren't messing around.

~~~
cptskippy
That's all true, I'm just wondering how things would be different if everyone
were using an Open Source CPU vs what we have today.

If everyone is running the same CPU design but sourced from different
manufacturers who had them spun up at different fabs, how would that affect
support? Today we have one or two device manufacturers we rely on for support
and answers about if security fixes can be done in firmware vs requiring a
hardware fix. We can pull the CPU ID of our system and then check with AMD or
Intel for an authoritative answer. What does that look like when anyone can
manufacture a chip?

Will there still end up being one or two predominant CPU manufactures for
desktop/mobile/server CPUs to simplify support? Are we going to have to rely
on OEMs to support the CPUs they put in their machines?

I'm fearful we might end up in a situation similar or worse to what we have
with Android where smartphones are shipped in their final state and never
receive anything beyond failure support from the OEM/ODM.

~~~
snom380
That's the case today: ARM CPUs are sourced from different manufacturers and
packaged together with other cores into SoCs, which have wildly varying
support from their vendors. Some of these processors also have custom
extensions. If you're worried about chip security when anyone can manufacture
a chip, then sorry, we're already there, and RISC-V doesn't change that.

~~~
cptskippy
So what does it solve that's a problem today?

* Serious question. Apart from the freedom and control aspects of the Open Source model, what is solved with an open source CPU architecture or what are the benefits?

I can see being able to spin your own chips would enable an OEM/ODM to keep
producing the same old design indefinitely where as reliance on
Intel/AMD/Samsung/Mediatek means you have to refresh your design. That could
be both a benefit and a detriment depending on how you look at it.

~~~
snom380
Again, being able to spin your own chips isn't really at issue here, that's
already possible. ARM and MIPS will likely happily let you continue to make
chips based on old cores as long as you continue to pay your license fees.

The freedoms from the Open Source model is substantial enough to make it
attractive on that basis alone, just as for Linux/BSD. One example is Western
Digital transitioning to RISC-V for their hard drive controllers. I would
imagine being able to add your own instructions without having to deal with
NDAs and non competes with ARM will be attractive to a lot of OEMs.

Just like with Linux, it's difficult to anticipate what intersting things will
come out of RISC-V, but one interesting example is a formally verified RISC-V
core, picorv32: [https://github.com/cliffordwolf/riscv-
formal/tree/master/cor...](https://github.com/cliffordwolf/riscv-
formal/tree/master/cores/picorv32) (presentation here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU97ffHF_IQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU97ffHF_IQ)).
According to the author, this core will power safety critical applications at
a synchrotron: [https://theamphour.com/374-an-interview-with-clifford-
wolf/](https://theamphour.com/374-an-interview-with-clifford-wolf/)

------
AdmiralAsshat
This page should be archived alongside the Halloween documents as a reminder
of the endless FUD campaigns against FLOSS software/hardware.

------
MisterTea
I call shenanigans, this is a fake page. First off the page isn't coming from
arm's own domain yet it appears to mimic the look and feel of the arm site. No
cookie acceptance policy and the missing links from the bottom of the page are
further proof.

~~~
blauditore
Yeah, WHOIS lists DomainsByProxy.com - why would they hide their name in the
domain registration if they write "arm" on the header in big letters, linking
to arm.com?

This actually looks like a smear campaign _against_ ARM.

~~~
oytis
But the diagram is actually hosted by ARM. Maybe it's ARM wants to think us
that RISC-V supporters launched a campaign against them \s

------
Uberphallus
A friend works in ARM and was extremely surprised (negatively) when I shared
this link with him

RISC-V may, perhaps, compete in two fields with ARM: education, where ARM
doesn't give a fuck, and hacker boards, which is a tiny market compared to
smartphones, smarttvs and so on. There have been around 15 million Raspberry
Pi (the most popular SBC) sold in 6 years. Samsung sold 321 million
smartphones last year alone.

Whoever is thinking today about replacing some production anything with a
RISC-V is insane to begin with, but this campaign ups the insanity further.

~~~
394549
> RISC-V may, perhaps, compete in two fields with ARM: education, where ARM
> doesn't give a fuck, and hacker boards, which is a tiny market

Those seem like very similar markets to those that Linux started out with.

AFAIK, Sun never ran FUD/attack ads against Linux, but this feels similar to a
_hypothetical_ world where they did so very early in 1993.

I doubt FUD will ultimately be able to prevent the adoption of RISC-V, but it
may be able to delay the inevitable for a few years.

~~~
lokedhs
If I recall correctly SCO did. At least they pointed out how much more stable
they were than Linux.

And SCO was much more vulnerable to Linux than Sun was. Linux could even run
SCO binaries unmodified.

And we know what happened to them later.

And I say this as someone who used to work for a SCO distributor, and later
Sun.

------
graycrow
Assuming that this is not a fake - who is the target audience for a such page?
They are not talking about baby diapers there, but CPU architectures. I just
can't imagine that someone responsible for choosing a CPU architecture will
base his/her decision on a page like this. Then why it exists? To show us that
ARM is afraid of RISC-V? Ok then, message received.

~~~
deepnotderp
You think that all CPU architects and semiconductor company employees are
elites who can't be fooled by marketing.

You'd be surprised...

------
flyinglizard
ARM is playing a very, very dumb game here. Do they seriously think any
prospective RISC-V user has not taken this information into account? Whomever
goes on to design an ASIC probably knows what they are getting into well
enough.

ARM would be much wiser to embrace RISC-V early, spearheading this effort and
bringing RISC-V users into their tools and ecosystem.

------
snvzz
ARM is apparently and unsurprisingly scared shitless about the RISC-V threat.

~~~
graycrow
They may be scared and this is completely normal. What is not normal - it's
the fact that there is a person placed high enough in the ARM's chain of
command, who sanctioned this dumb page - like "oh, that's really nice - it
will help us a lot, publish it".

~~~
convolvatron
maybe the world would be better off if we treated marketing as a sunk cost and
stopped encouraging them to actually try to control the narrative.

------
SlowRobotAhead
IDK...

Everyone freaking out about how "disruptive" an open source core would be...
You still need someone to place it on silicon (unless you want to waste most
of your FPGA on a soft core) and you need someone to make peripherals which
lets be honest is 80%-95% of what Cortex M-type embedded processors are doing
at any given time. These seem like the major barriers that aren't solved by
removing a licensing fee for the core.

Maybe I just don't get it, but it seems a LONG way out for RISC-V powered top
tier phones.

~~~
_chris_
Let's say I'm making an SoC and I need an always-on service processor. It's a
waste of effort for me to make it myself, so I'll either license one or grab
one off the internet, if I could trust it.

In the past, people just threw a little bit of money to ARM and called it a
day.

But now, I could grab picorv32 or rocket for free off the internet. Both have
been taped out in this capacity before, both speak standard bus interfaces,
and the former has been fully(?) formally verified.

Sure, it's not a resounding success story, but it helps me get my SoC to
market sooner and at a lower cost (no need to even spend time negotiating with
anybody).

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
>Sure, it's not a resounding success story, but it helps me get my SoC to
market sooner and at a lower cost (no need to even spend time negotiating with
anybody).

Ok, but you're then dumping what at least a million dollars into someone
else's firmware that is unsupported if there is an issue? IDK. I can think of
lots of cases where it might make sense for the hobbiest, or for softcores or
for weird applications - but...

There are engineers from STM with desks at ARM, and engineers from ARM with
desks at STM. I just don't see STM saying "fuck it, let's just spool up some
core we contributed to as a fully in house project". They already need to
support their peripherals and production, maybe they are paying enough to ARM
to make it worth it to add core code to that list, maybe not.

ARM makes a ton of money, but they also assume all of the contractual
obligations for issues and support. I'm not sure the entire industry would be
using ARM if it made sense to spool up your own, even as open source. But
again, IDK.

~~~
_chris_
I think you underestimate just how many hardware startups there are and how
many of them are NOT going to license an ARM core for their service core.

------
sillywindows
Are we sure this is published by Arm? The whois and certificates seem a bit
anonymous.

~~~
detaro
The header tags reference a copy of the "infographic" hosted on arm.com:
[https://www.arm.com:443/-/media/global/company/arm-risc-v-
in...](https://www.arm.com:443/-/media/global/company/arm-risc-v-
infographic.png?revision=c8e7b9ff-7eee-45b0-aedd-a6ebee15976d)

~~~
slezyr
Ok, looks genuine now, thanks for proofs.

------
littlestymaar
The hn title could replace «Facts» with «FUD» since this is literally what
this campaign is.

~~~
antpls
I'm a rather uninformed reader, and I would be interested to read about
sources that say the facts presented here are wrong, rather than just read
"it's a FUD campaign". At the end of the day, no camp rigoursly shared
information

~~~
rwmj
As with all FUD campaigns, there's an element of truth. ARM does undoubtedly
have a very large ecosystem and more features (RISC-V lacks hardware
virtualization for example).

But there are also loads of companies using and producing real RISC-V cores
and all the major Linux distros are already shipping on RISC-V. The barrier to
entry to RISC-V is far lower since you can quite literally download the cores
off github and program them into just about any FPGA (there's even a version
which works with an 8k-LUT FPGA that costs $10 in quantity). Or just fire up a
qemu RISC-V VM at no cost at all.

As with Linux & Windows servers c.1999, who would you bet on winning in the
end?

~~~
pjmlp
> As with Linux & Windows servers c.1999, who would you bet on winning in the
> end?

It was more about UNIX & Windows.

Linux won on the servers thanks to majority of UNIX guys cutting down costs by
outsourcing their development costs into Linux.

Had Linux not gotten the money of IBM, HP, Compaq, SGI, Intel, Oracle, Sun,
Google, ...., the outcome would have looked much different.

~~~
squarefoot
"Had Linux not gotten the money of IBM, HP, Compaq, SGI, Intel, Oracle, Sun,
Google, ...., the outcome would have looked much different."

Linux would win anyway. I've worked in the late 90s-early2k in places which
were then already planning the move from proprietary Unix to Linux, some of
them also in pretty critical contexts. Most of the companies you mention
already had their own Unix: AIX, Digital Unix / Tru64, Irix, Solaris; they
shoveled all that money into Linux (apparently against their own business)
because they realized that selling products and services would pay in the long
run a lot more than selling also the operating system, especially when the OSS
competitor was gaining support every day. Soon or later that abundance in
developers and testers would turn into less bugs, more features and faster
response to vulnerabilities that no corporation in the world could equal.

~~~
pjmlp
> UNIX guys cutting down costs by outsourcing their development costs into
> Linux.

Apparently people can't read.

------
legulere
I have to say that I’m surprised that it seems to be pretty factual.

The main points seem to be that RISC-V is not there yet and that customization
is expensive. I guess for most projects you currently use ARM processors ARM
will make most sense for a while. RISC-V will probably slowly eat a growing
piece of that market though over the next years to decades.

~~~
Dylan16807
When it starts off saying there are "currently" no royalties, as if royalties
could be added in the future, I'm not inclined to call it "pretty factual".
Maybe "contains some facts, among other things".

Also point 4 is pretty useless, and point 5 is basically nonsense. It's
implying that you should avoid the higher costs of customizing by using Arm
instead of just... not customizing.

------
dankiq
[https://www.arm.com/-/media/global/company/arm-risc-v-
infogr...](https://www.arm.com/-/media/global/company/arm-risc-v-
infographic.png?revision=c8e7b9ff-7eee-45b0-aedd-a6ebee15976d)

The article is not fake

------
sligor
what I read: RISC-V is a very serious competitor for ARM

~~~
topspin
Indeed. We've arrived at the 'fight' stage of ignore, laugh, fight, win.

------
deepnotderp
Yes, it's from arm, who has a vested interest, yes it's in poor taste, and
yes, it's stretching in some places, but it's not necessarily inaccurate...

~~~
dtech
I do not understand the commotion either. As far as attack ads go, this keeps
very close to the truth and points out legitimate concerns.

This so far away from the early 00's Microsoft anti-Linux campagin that you
can't even really call it FUD

~~~
FullyFunctional
Because it's fud. Each of the five points are either lies or stretching the
truth, and is missing a key element: RISC-V allows people to innovate (on the
implementation, not necessarily adding instructions to the ISA). To do this
for Arm requires an architectural license which is insanely expensive (you can
start many start ups for just this alone).

------
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
Haha, that reads so much like Microsoft's FUD in the early 2000s targeting
Linux ... so I guess we can conclude from that that ARM's assessment is that
RISC-V is a viable alternative that's worth using and investing in?

------
bmcusick
Looking forward to "The Year of the RISC-V Desktop" articles.

That's a joke, but I think Windows vs. Linux is the right reference frame
here, assuming that RISC-V proves out. Those who want to roll their own and
control their own destiny may go with RISC-V, while those who want a packaged
solution will go ARM. And ARM will have to get better to compete.

Western Digital has gone with RISC-V for a controller, because Western Digital
is the kind of company that wants to commoditize its inputs so it can sell a
packaged solution to its customers as cheaply as possible. I can also see
Amazon or Google finding uses for RISC-V in their data centers.

Phones ... I'm not so sure. Maybe Apple could go that way, as they're
vertically integrated and already make their Ax chips in house. But the
Android OEMs wouldn't unless Google leads the way.

~~~
flurrything
Jokes aside. Since February you can already buy RISC-V SoCs that run Linux...
at pretty high prices, e.g., [https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive-
unleashed](https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive-unleashed) costs 1000$
bucks and the expansion board costs 2000$...

Still not practical for the masses, but not more expensive than similar
extravagant architectures like PowerPCs (IIRC a PowerPC9 desktop system costs
about 9000$ today).

Someone joked that you could get a 30$ xeon system on ebay from a couple of
years ago that would crush these on pretty much any benchmark, but who knows,
maybe some day riscv chips will become cheaper and more powerful. What we are
seeing in the market today are the very first such systems, from the very
first vendors.

~~~
bmcusick
Oh, I'm sure that there will be hobbyists who do this. Just like there are
people who run Arch on their home PC, or automate their house with Arduinos.
The joke about "The Year of the Linux Desktop" is predicting mass consumer
adoption. That doesn't seem too likely, unless someone like Apple or Google
decides to move their stack over to silicon they can design and control in-
house without need for ARM's long term support.

------
harias
Can somebody please verify the authenticity? Why didn't arm use a subdomain of
arm.com?

~~~
dchest
Good question. Domain is registered with wildwestdomains (GoDaddy),
anonymized:

    
    
        Domain Name: RISCV-BASICS.COM
        Registry Domain ID: 2277459939_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
        Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.wildwestdomains.com
        Registrar URL: http://www.wildwestdomains.com
        Updated Date: 2018-06-20T21:54:44Z
        Creation Date: 2018-06-20T21:54:44Z
        Registry Expiry Date: 2019-06-20T21:54:44Z
        Registrar: Wild West Domains, LLC
        ...
    
        Registrant Name: Registration Private
        Registrant Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC
        Registrant Street: DomainsByProxy.com
    
    

Hosted on Azure:

    
    
          Name Server: NS1-07.AZURE-DNS.COM
          Name Server: NS2-07.AZURE-DNS.NET
          Name Server: NS3-07.AZURE-DNS.ORG
          Name Server: NS4-07.AZURE-DNS.INFO
       
    

SSL cert is from GoDaddy. This is very different from arm.com.

At first sight, I'd assume it's fake.

Link to arm.com though has GA tags for tracking:

    
    
        ?utm_source=riscv-basics.com&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=18.06_riscv-ds-eval-confidence_riscv_na_na_web_pg2956a1_02
    
    

HTML has:

    
    
        <meta name="server" content="ARMGSCD2" />
    

which matches arm.com

    
    
        <meta name="server" content="ARMBPCM1">
    

Of course, these can also be fake.

But maybe it's real.

EDIT: It's real:

[https://www.arm.com/-/media/global/company/arm-risc-v-
infogr...](https://www.arm.com/-/media/global/company/arm-risc-v-
infographic.png?revision=c8e7b9ff-7eee-45b0-aedd-a6ebee15976d%22)

------
baybal2
"Get the facts"... sounds way to familiar...

------
wsterling
This is a marketing page with little if any information, how did it get voted
up?

~~~
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
The information isn't in the text itself, it's in the fact that ARM feels like
publishing this is a good idea. They don't publish such nonsensical marketing
for competition they consider irrelevant.

------
childintime
Let's not forget ARM sold out to Softbank right about when RISC-V was picking
up steam (2016). As engineers they probably saw it coming. The bankers not so
much.

~~~
_chris_
And then they started raising the licensing fees. Man what bad timing.

------
dganousis
It was a legit website - here's Arm's admission and explanation of intent.

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/10/arm_riscv_website/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/10/arm_riscv_website/)

They sure did the RISC-V community a great service over the last 48 hours ....

------
dganousis
It was a legit website - here's Arm's admission and explanation after they
took down the site today:

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/10/arm_riscv_website/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/10/arm_riscv_website/)

------
_venkatasg
Am I the only one getting a blank page when I run it with an adblocker?

------
DannyB2
An important missing feature: something resembling "Intel Management Engine"

Does ARM have this? Does RISC-V have this?

If Management is good, then someone's Remote Management of your computer must
be even gooder!

------
cybervegan
Scary! Scary! Don't go in there - it's SCARY!

But scary for whom? For ARM maybe? Is it just me, or is this pure FUD?

------
tzahola
Can't tell if parody, legit, or an amateur false flag.

------
jacknews
These facts seem fairly true, it's a new thing and doesn't have much momentum
yet.

I don't think there are that many people yet considering risc V seriously for
current commercial implementations, rather than keeping an eye on it for
future projects, but I'm sure there will be once momentum builds.

~~~
Iwan-Zotow
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/01/wdc_risc_v_edge_str...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/01/wdc_risc_v_edge_strategy/)

