In recent years, news about "how RISC-V is the future of processor and it will soon replace ARM" has emerged one after another, but these are all put forward without considering the difficulty of using one set of registers and instructions to another in existing programs on the market. In other words, the answer is no.
The prevalence of RISC-V
Although there are more and more RISC-V ISA processors, we must realize that, contrary to ARM, ARM's registers and instruction sets are fixed and untouchable, but in RISC-V it is modular. Therefore, only one instruction or a set of instructions does not exist, and the program will stop running. Although new instructions have been added to various ISAs to address new types of problems, there is actually no way to maintain a stable foundation to maintain compatibility among different applications.
RISC-V's has different way, modularity allows chip manufacturers to manufacture special processors and select instruction sets, thus selecting instructions that chips eventually carry, which enables them to focus more on accelerating common tasks and releasing processor cores. This is quite different from a command streamer that only completes one task. This is the key to RISC-V, so it will become more and more popular, and even surpass ARM in usage.
In embedded systems, it is particularly important to create special-purpose or even general-purpose processors without paying for ISA. In embedded systems, we must have a processor with certain capabilities to make the program run normally, but we must abide by the immutable specifications and conditions of x86 or ARM processors and pay more for the functions in the application.
In addition, the goal of each processor is to get programs running as fast as possible, and to take advantage of support units to reduce the burden of common but repetitive tasks. The supercomputer market has begun to design its own chips and apply them through FPGA, but in the case of home PCs, the units within the central processing unit, graphics chip and even some chipset functions will be different.
Compete between RISC-V and X86 and ARM
RISC-V has become a strong competitor in CPU industry and attracted much attention from the industry, and is now building its own ecosystem step by step. These are the only ways for RISC-V, but there is still a long way to go before real ecological prosperity. The processor market is a very special market, and there is no indication that RISC-V will become a cutting-edge processor.
The real challenge is not the technical ability, nor the ability to do things that competitors can't. For example, RISC-V is shipped in large quantities in the form of embedded and SoC chips, and it is the only ISA where designers can freely add or modify architectural features at the ISA level. Compared with the market advantages of the two competitors, this is still a little trivial.
X86 architecture is a complex instruction set, which is mainly used in PC industry, and its position is very stable. Although ARM architecture often crosses the boundary, simple instruction set can't be compared with complex instruction set in PC field. Coupled with Wintel's solid alliance, other architectures even RISC-V can't replace X86.
Let's talk about ARM architecture, which is a simple instruction set with low power consumption and is mainly used for mobile phones and mobile devices. RISC-V can replace ARM to some extent, after all, RISC-V is also a simple instruction set. However, ARM architecture and Android have formed a strong ecological alliance, which is called A-A ecology. Devices that need this ecology will prefer ARM instead of RISC-V.
However, looking at the development of RISC-V in the world, North America is still the innovation highland of RISC-V, and it is being fully explored from processor IP to software to data center; European established companies are gradually changing from the original architecture to RISC-V architecture; In Asia, companies represented by Andes, StarFive, SENSUN WEIGHING, NUCLEI and PINGTOUGE are striving to promote the development of processors. In addition, most chip companies are also considering how to use RISC-V to develop their own ecological products, and many basic software companies are gradually entering the RISC-V ecology.
David Patterson, the father of RISC-V and winner of ACM A.M. Turing Award, once said: "RISC-V is a global phenomenon. In 3 to 5 years, RISC-V will be everywhere! " According to relevant data, 10 billion processors with RISC-V architecture have been shipped in 2022, and it is predicted that they will exceed 80 billion by 2025. With the advent of the intelligent era of the Internet of Everything, the open, concise and modular RISC-V architecture has risen and moved from the terminal to the cloud, which is very hopeful to develop into the third largest architecture ecology.
After X86 and ARM, RISC-V is expected to become the third largest architecture ecology-China exportsemi.com
