The Era of RISC-V Chips
Recently, according to data from the RISC-V International Foundation,the global shipment of chips based on the RISC-V architecture is expected to exceed 10 billion units in 2024, with China contributing over 50%, and 30% of these are applied in AI acceleration scenarios. This data marks RISC-V’s official entry into the top three instruction sets globally (alongside x86 and ARM), with its open-source and customizable features reshaping the technological roadmap and competitive landscape of the electronic components industry.
From the perspective of technological autonomy,the zero-royalty model of RISC-V directly reduces chip design costs. Traditional ARM and x86 architecture chips require a royalty fee of 2.5%-15% of the selling price, while RISC-V allows domestic MCUs, SoCs, and other chips to reduce costs by 10%-20%. At the same time, the modular characteristics of RISC-V provide developers with greater freedom. Alibaba’s Damo Academy’s Xuantie TITAN supports scalable vector engines from 512 to 4096 bits, and Allwinner Technology’s R128 chip has an annual shipment of over 10 million units, flexibly adapting to fragmented scenarios such as robotic vacuum cleaners and action cameras, driving the explosion of customized chips.
The industrial chain pattern is thus undergoing a reshuffle,with China transitioning from a technological “follower” to an ecological “leader”. Domestic IP and EDA tools are accelerating their rise: Chipone Technology’s NA900 has become the world’s first RISC-V CPU IP to pass ISO 26262 ASIL-B/D certification, and Andes Technology’s AX66 processor IP performance is approaching that of ARM Cortex-A78, promoting the autonomy of domestic toolchains. On the manufacturing side, capacity is also shifting, with foundries like SMIC and Hua Hong redirecting 28nm/14nm capacity towards RISC-V chips. By 2024, domestic RISC-V chips are expected to account for over 40% of global shipments, with microcontrollers experiencing an annual growth rate of 42%, forming a complete industrial chain closed loop from design to manufacturing.
The explosion of application scenarios further confirms the industrial value of RISC-V.In the AI acceleration field, 30% of RISC-V chips are used in inference scenarios, with Tenstorrent’s Blackhole AI chip adopting a “16 large cores + 752 small cores” heterogeneous design, achieving a computing power of 745 TOPS; ZTE Microelectronics has realized efficient interconnection between CPU and GPU through Chiplet technology, reducing the inference cost of large models by 35%. Automotive electronics have become a strategic high ground, with automotive-grade MCUs like Zijing M100 and Dongfeng DF30 entering mass production, and Huawei’s HarmonyOS and Tongxin UOS systems completing adaptation, while international car manufacturers like Bosch and Tesla accelerate their layout of RISC-V cockpit chips, pushing domestic automotive chips from “replacement” to a new stage of “definition”.
The global shipment of RISC-V chips exceeding 10 billion units is not only a milestone in technological evolution but also a catalyst for the transformation of the electronic components industry. It requires companies to transform from “single product providers” to “ecological co-builders” by leveraging strategies such as technological customization, ecological collaboration, and policy adaptation to seize opportunities in the wave of open source. In the future, RISC-V will deeply integrate with technologies such as AI and quantum computing, driving the electronic components industry towards a more open, intelligent, and sustainable new era.
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