three main chip design architectures: Arm, Intel’s own X86 and Risc-V
a community of 50mn developers that make it(arm)
Semico Research forecasts that 62.4bn chips based on Risc-V will have shipped by 2024. Semico estimates that Risc-V only accounted for $80mn of the total $2.2bn IP market for computer processing unit cores in 2020. However, it expects this to grow to $687mn by 2027 — taking its share of the global market from 1 per cent to 16 per cent. “Risc-V started out as a curiosity next to Arm, then it became an alternative, and now it’s a competitor,” said Richard Wawrzyniak, an analyst at Semico Research.
In a further sign of growing interest, Apple has moved some of its embedded cores, which power technologies such as WiFi, Bluetooth and touchpad control, from Arm processors to Risc-V, according to two people briefed on its plans. Apple has also posted a number of jobs ads in recent months looking for engineers familiar with Risc-V.
SoftBank, which owns the chip designer, is now planning to list Arm in New York next year.
Risc-V — pronounced “Risc-five” — an open-source chip design architecture created in 2010 by the University of California, Berkeley. As the open architecture began to gain traction outside of academic circles, the Risc-V Foundation moved its headquarters from the US to Switzerland in 2019 to solidify its geopolitically neutral position in the chip ecosystem.
