By Charlie Hauck, CEO, Bluespec Inc.
Charlie Hauck
The demand for custom silicon continues to rise. To meet this demand for greater design flexibility, companies are adopting silicon based on the open standard RISC-V architecture.
RISC-V is popular with developers for many reasons. Most notably, RISC-V’s popularity stems from its design freedom – allowing developers to tailor applications to their liking, thanks to its simplified base instruction set – and enables developers to avoid vendor lock-in. The collaborative ecosystem encourages developers to innovate alongside each other, spurring friendly competition which also encourages companies to push the boundaries of innovation.
In 2024, we expect to see RISC-V adoption grow more across vertical markets. While traditionally used to support embedded applications, RISC-V is now being used in applications in automotive, aerospace, consumer devices. We expect RISC-V will be used to support AI applications in the coming year as industries increase their use and reliance on advanced technologies. Generative AI applications, for example, require lots of computing power. RISC-V not only helps reduce the cost associated with running these applications, but efficiently does so compared to other architectures on the market. With Google leveraging RISC-V to support Android applications, we also expect to see more companies launching RISC-V-enabled gadgets like smartwatches.
