On the EVE of the RISC-V Summit North America

The ESD Alliance hosted an engrossing evening in the early days of RISC-V featuring two of its authors. At the time, RISC-V was a fledgling concept and it’s doubtful anyone there that night would have believed how quickly it was adopted across the semiconductor industry.

On the eve of the RISC-V Summit North America, it’s a great time to look back on its beginning and how it became a semiconductor industry phenomenon. For answers, I turned to Calista Redmond, CEO of RISC-V International, and Tiffany Sparks, its Director of Marketing.

Smith: RISC-V as an open standard is starting to take root in the mainstream semiconductor industry and it’s not just DYIers or hobbyists. What’s changed? Is this the wave of the future?

Redmond: Due to RISC-V being an open standard, the playing field is level, enabling companies of all sizes to engage in custom computing without the traditional challenges associated with licensing, royalties, and design limitations in proprietary models. Combined with the open foundational architecture of RISC-V, this reduced barrier to entry is a significant factor why RISC-V is taking root, and why it is here to stay.

More than 3,900 RISC-V members across 70 countries contribute and collaborate to define RISC-V open specifications as well as convene and govern related technical, industry, domain, and special interest groups. While our roots were born in academia, industry stakeholders were invested from the beginning. As new workloads demanded a more flexible and open design approach, investment in RISC-V began to soar.

RISC-V is an open, global standard. This is a critical distinction in that we freeze and ratify the essential specifications. As an open standard, anyone may leverage RISC-V as a building block in their open or proprietary solutions and services. This created a new model for companies of all sizes to engage in custom compute.

RISC-V is a transformative force shaping the future of hardware and software design and computing. As for the future, I would say it is here to stay.

Smith: Can you point to one specific catalyst that ignited RISC-V use? 

Redmond:  There are multiple catalysts. RISC-V entered the industry at the inflection point of explosive business opportunites for custom compute to address applications such as accelerated computing, security, automotive, AI, wearables, low power, and other competitive markets. The business opportunity came at the same time as RISC-V ushered in a new modular, open approach that enabled any company to add their unique differentiation to compete effectively for new workloads.

In parallel, many companies began leveraging RISC-V for lower-level processing tasks in microcontrollers which opened up and grew their experience with RISC-V and enabled them to pursue future workloads.Smith: Engineering groups large and small are creating chips built around the RISC-V ISA. Why? What’s the feedback RISC-V International is getting?

Redmond: We’ve seen a lot of well-established multinational companies engage in RISC-V to leverage the open standard in microcontrollers, accelerators, and other differentiating capabilities that surround the central processing in their existing products. This leads to an easier path to engaging with RISC-V for future generations of central processing in everything from cell phones to enterprise servers. For smaller companies that do not have an existing investment in another architecture, it is an easier decision to go all in on RISC-V from the start. This is evident in the sheer number of start-ups on RISC-V in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

We are seeing a true renaissance in hardware start-ups that was not possible in the past as the barriers to entry were significant. Venture capital is eagerly following this trend as we see numerous well-funded start-ups making big waves across industries.

Smith: Other than the open standard aspect of the RISC-V ISA, what are the other advantages it delivers when compared to other architectures?

Redmond: Leveraging an open standard rather than a proprietary approach has ushered in innovations across technology that have enabled entire ecosystems. Ethernet and WiFi are great examples of this RISC-V is similar in that the open standard reduces investment risk in the architecture based on the collective global investments being made in it. This ensures freedom of choice as a valued attribute over vendor lock-in.

In addition, RISC-V is a modular approach. From a technical perspective, this allows designers to select the base RISC-V ISA along with only those extensions necessary for their design leading to reduction in code size, efficiency gains, and greater potential for differentiation. RISC-V is also beneficial to the larger software ecosystem in streamlining workload portability via a single hypervisor standard. As RISC-V grows in popularity, we’re seeing more software supported on architectures such as Android.

Smith: Is one chip design segment using the RISC-V ISA more than others? Do you know why?

Redmond: We’re seeing growth across a multitude of industries with earliest adoption in embedded and industrial designs and now spanning to include automotive, mobile, consumer devices, laptops, data center servers, and HPC.

The adoption of RISC-V is accelerating across all segments, and we anticipate higher end computing will catch up quickly as more of the ecosystem comes onboard across the next few years.

Smith: What can we expect from RISC-V International in 2024?

Redmond: RISC-V is continuing to ratify extensions essential to our community and we’ll bring out profiles of commonly used compositions in the first half of 2024. In parallel, we’re working to streamline our developer experience, enhance and grow the software ecosystem, and engage the community in compatibility and certification.

Smith: How can ESD Alliance and SEMI members get involved?

Redmond: Attending events like the RISC-V Summit is an excellent way for ESD Alliance and SEMI members to learn first-hand the latest innovations, technical deep dives, and thought leadership across the compute spectrum as well as connect directly with your colleagues in RISC-V.

Joining the community as a member further deepens involvement, and opens up opportunities for networking, collaboration, and staying at the forefront of advancements in RISC-V. Find out how to join at riscv.org.

Note: The RISC-V Summit North America Summit opens Tuesday, November 7, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, Calif. ESD Alliance member companies Axiomise, Breker Verification Systems, Siemens and Synopsys are sponsors. I hope to see you there.

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