Challenges and Opportunities for RISC-V in the ARM and x86 Landscape

According to a report by Electronic Enthusiasts Network (Author: Zhou Kaiyang), the emergence of a new architecture in the electronics industry often requires overcoming many obstacles to survive in the market. However, to dominate a market, the challenges become even more severe. RISC-V, which has only begun to rise in recent years, also needs to break through multiple shackles in hardware, software, and ecology to carve out a niche in the x86 and ARM-dominated market.

For example, in terms of software ecology, Apple recently launched its laptops equipped with the ARM processor M1. However, long before Apple, Microsoft had already introduced several laptops based on ARM processors and collaborated with Qualcomm to create Windows on ARM. Nevertheless, its software ecology remains underwhelming, with a lack of native ARM desktop software and mediocre compatibility with x86 software.

In contrast, after Apple released the M1 Macbook, major tech giants quickly began adaptation work, with many software programs being compatible through Rosetta 2 translation. Companies like Google and Adobe immediately launched compatible software, and even Microsoft quickly released M1 versions of Office and VS Code, showcasing Apple’s accumulated influence in the MacOS software ecology.

So, can RISC-V, as an open-source architecture, break through the siege and follow the glorious path of ARM, potentially shaking the dominance of mainstream architectures like x86?

Opportunities for Breakthroughs in Consumer Applications

Currently, in the RISC-V ecosystem, we mostly see IoT projects. According to various predictions, the fastest growth in the future is expected to occur mainly in the industrial and computing sectors. However, in the consumer market dominated by ARM and x86, what breakthroughs can RISC-V achieve?

After interviewing Yu Hongbin, Chief Technology Officer of Sifang Technology, Lin Zongmin, Deputy Director of Technology Product Marketing, and Hu Jin, Senior Field Application Manager, they shared their insights on the opportunities for RISC-V in the consumer sector. Sifang Technology believes that the consumer application field can maximize the advantages of RISC-V’s simplified instruction set architecture, meaning there are no technical bottlenecks, allowing for tailored solutions to specific application scenarios. Moreover, the reserved custom instruction space in RISC-V will enable users to easily extend proprietary instructions and develop products with high energy efficiency.

At the same time, AIoT technology has been widely applied in consumer electronics, and with the introduction of RISC-V vector standards, more RISC-V consumer electronics applications in audio and video processing, artificial intelligence, and deep learning will emerge. The newly launched RISC-V security solutions will also facilitate the integration of RISC-V into consumer application SoCs.

Advantages and Challenges in High-Performance Applications

However, we rarely see RISC-V in high-performance applications. Both ARM and RISC-V have long coveted this market. So, what challenges does RISC-V face in taking a bite out of x86’s market share, and what advantages does it possess?

Sifang Technology believes that RISC-V has a latecomer advantage because this architecture was designed from the outset to avoid the flaws of x86 and ARM. Thus, from a technical perspective, under similar layouts, RISC-V’s design is more rational. For instance, the vector extension instruction RVV of RISC-V surpasses ARM’s NEON and SVE designs. Additionally, RISC-V’s hardware virtualization standards also avoid the flaws and deficiencies of other architectures, and vector extension instructions and hardware virtualization are fundamental to servers and data centers. Another significant advantage of RISC-V is its open-source nature, which is highly attractive to customers seeking autonomy and customization.

However, this does not mean that RISC-V’s path in high-performance applications will be smooth sailing. So far, RISC-V still has many extension instructions in the development stage, and related standards need continuous optimization and iteration. Therefore, for certain specific applications, software and ecosystem support is still lacking, and accelerating this process will require time and patience.

Is the Ecosystem Too Fragmented?

As the RISC-V ecosystem continues to grow, many manufacturers have launched their RISC-V IP cores, raising concerns about whether the current ecosystem is too fragmented and whether future designs and applications will be isolated.

Sifang Technology points out that although the RISC-V ecosystem is still in its early stages of vigorous development and is not fully equipped, a fragmented ecosystem is unlikely to occur. As long as product designs adhere to standardized RISC-V specifications for application development, there will be no issues with ecosystem connectivity. Moreover, the open-source and commercial development tools supporting RISC-V are already relatively mature, and more new applications will emerge in the future. For certain isolated cases, Sifang Technology believes that applications like Deep Embedded, besides the basic toolchain, do not rely heavily on the ecosystem. The introduction and iterative updates of RISC-V for different fields and technical specifications represent a gradual accumulation process, so such isolation phenomena are only short-term occurrences.

Wang Junhui, an ecological consultant at Pengfeng Technology, cited ARM’s ecological development path as an example. He mentioned that ARM’s ecosystem development was also closely tied to open source. In the past, ARM had a fragmented ecosystem, with companies like Samsung and TI maintaining their own underlying code. Thus, ARM and several tech giants established a non-profit organization called Linaro, dedicated to providing Linux open-source system technology services and a shared platform for various manufacturers.

Building an Open Source Hardware and Software Ecosystem

So, how should an open-source architecture like RISC-V develop its open-source hardware and software ecosystem aimed at application developers? Wang Junhui from Pengfeng Technology mentioned the development history of ARM’s Linaro and 96Boards, as well as the popular Raspberry Pi among developer communities. These open-source hardware initiatives have played a significant role in building ARM’s global application developer ecosystem and influence.

RISC-V also urgently needs such an open-source ecosystem. Therefore, Pengfeng Technology initiated the RVBoards open-source organization, supported by the CRVA and CRVIC alliances, aiming to build a “RISC-V + AI” developer ecosystem and provide a consistent hardware and software development environment. Through RVBoards, it aims to empower developers, research institutions, and industries, promoting talent cultivation. The RVBoards open-source technology organization has proposed three major plans for building the RISC-V open-source software ecosystem.

RVOpenSourcePlan: The main goal is to promote the construction of RISC-V SoC basic software capabilities and open-source ecosystem, solidly building the software ecosystem infrastructure to fully leverage RISC-V’s hardware capabilities and migrate vast amounts of OpenSource into the RISC-V ecosystem.

RVBoardsPlan: This plan revolves around the RVBoards board-level open-source hardware standards, constructing a chip and hardware partner ecosystem. The aim is to allow developers to smoothly transition from ARM and x86 to the RISC-V ecosystem for research and innovation.

RVFuturePlan: This plan combines the development opportunities presented by AI, 5G, and new energy technologies, closely collaborating with industry leaders, open-source organizations, and well-known developer forums to jointly promote the development of the RISC-V industrial chain, realizing China’s innovation and serving the vision of developers worldwide.

Challenges and Opportunities for RISC-V in the ARM and x86 Landscape

Perf-V Development Board / RVBoards

Currently, Pengfeng Technology has successfully deployed the Wujian 100 from PingTouGe on the RVBoards open-source FPGA hardware Perf-V0 series, equipped with the RISC-V architecture-based Xuantie 902 processor, providing various IPs and drivers for users to quickly achieve integration and validation. The Perf-V1, supporting RISC-V IP with specifications equivalent to Xuantie 910, is under intensive development and is expected to launch multiple Perf-A series open-source hardware aimed at IoT applications in Q1 2021, primarily to create a typical RISCV32 + AI open-source hardware platform and typical applications for IoT endpoints.

Promoting the RISC-V Ecosystem

Since we are discussing the RISC-V ecosystem, we cannot avoid the topic of ecosystem promotion. A robust ecosystem promotion is the driving force behind the continuous development of any architecture.

Sifang Technology officially joined the RISC-V International Association this year as a senior member, and in the future, it will work closely with other members on RISC-V’s strategic planning and the formulation of industry standards and technical routes. In addition, Sifang Technology achieved three major successes in ecosystem promotion this year. At the beginning of the year, Sifang Technology launched the “Full Sky Chip” plan, allowing customers developing AIoT/MCU to enjoy access to the silicon-validated RISC-V IP, which is also Sifang’s proprietary commercial RISC-V processor IP S2. Sifang Technology revealed that within just six months, more than 20 customers have benefited from this initiative.

Sifang Technology also launched the world’s first high-performance RISC-V artificial intelligence vision processing platform, Jinghong 7100, this autumn, and at the end of the year, it unveiled the world’s highest-performing RISC-V processor core, the Tianxu series, at the 2020 China Integrated Circuit Design Industry Conference.

Tianxu Series Processor Features / Sifang Technology

The Tianxu series processors achieve a high frequency of 3.5GHz using TSMC’s 7nm process, with a SPECint2006 value of 31.2 @ 3.5GHz and Dhrystone reaching 5.6 DMIPS/MHz. This processor core also supports the latest RVV 1.0 extension instructions and hardware virtualization, specifically targeting high-performance application areas such as AI, 5G, industrial IoT, and big data centers.

Conclusion

The open-source and scalable RISC-V has attracted the attention of many tech giants and is taking root in various application fields. For instance, storage manufacturers like Western Digital, Seagate, and Marvell plan to apply RISC-V extensively in their future storage controllers. ARM’s current standing is the result of a long accumulation process. Although x86 and ARM are RISC-V’s competitors, the technological foundations laid by both in many open-source and commercial technologies can also be leveraged by RISC-V. If RISC-V can maintain this development momentum, it is bound to become one of the mainstream architectures in the future.

Disclaimer: This article is original to Electronic Enthusiasts. Please indicate the source above if reproduced. For group discussions, please add WeChat elecfans999. For contributions, interviews, and inquiries, please email [email protected].

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