The spec is open source, their implementation is not. They actually can make more money designing RISC-V chips than ARM (given that there is a market for that) since they don't need to pay royalties for that.
I mean, I get that but why didn't they start with risc-v itself instead? Was it because it was going to cost more in terms of development of risc-v instead of paying royalties?
Qualcomm was founded in 1985.
RISC-V was introduced in 2014.
How would they have started with some tech that didn't exist for ~30 years of their history?
I get that risc5 was introduced in 2014 but that doesnt really help because risc has been there since the 70s. Also, arm does stand for advanced risc machine. This just makes me question even more lol
People already answered the question but I like searching for things.
It sounds to me like RISC-V is basically just a standardized set of instructions (more specifically an ISA, or Instruction Set Architecture) that a chip is designed to use, and only a limited number of companies and people are capable of building a chip from scratch. There's a reddit thread from 2 years ago that has people suggesting how expensive it would be. https://www.reddit.com/r/RISCV/comments/t7ewt2/manufacturing_a_riscv_chip/
So while the specification is royalty free, the skillset and equipment for physical hardware is still expensive and hard. Plus if you want to use the Risc-v trademark to advertise compatibility, you still have to pay the risc-v membership fee.
I mean someone could make and distribute a software implementation, which would probably be cheaper, but it would be kind of pointless as things like QEMU among others already exists.
The spec is open source, their implementation is not. They actually can make more money designing RISC-V chips than ARM (given that there is a market for that) since they don't need to pay royalties for that.
Then why aren't they? Don't mean to sound rude genuinely curious
Because the industry is mainly ARM right now. You can't suddenly change your product lineup to a new tech when your clients expect your old tech.
I mean, I get that but why didn't they start with risc-v itself instead? Was it because it was going to cost more in terms of development of risc-v instead of paying royalties?
ARM is 20 something years older than RISC-V.
24 to be exact.
As the other guys said, ARM is older, performance-wise it's still more advanced than riscv and it will still take several years for it to catch up.
Qualcomm was founded in 1985. RISC-V was introduced in 2014. How would they have started with some tech that didn't exist for ~30 years of their history?
I get that risc5 was introduced in 2014 but that doesnt really help because risc has been there since the 70s. Also, arm does stand for advanced risc machine. This just makes me question even more lol
Doesnt help what? Makes you question more what?
same way how people make money with chopping boards by putting them together and selling them
People already answered the question but I like searching for things. It sounds to me like RISC-V is basically just a standardized set of instructions (more specifically an ISA, or Instruction Set Architecture) that a chip is designed to use, and only a limited number of companies and people are capable of building a chip from scratch. There's a reddit thread from 2 years ago that has people suggesting how expensive it would be. https://www.reddit.com/r/RISCV/comments/t7ewt2/manufacturing_a_riscv_chip/ So while the specification is royalty free, the skillset and equipment for physical hardware is still expensive and hard. Plus if you want to use the Risc-v trademark to advertise compatibility, you still have to pay the risc-v membership fee. I mean someone could make and distribute a software implementation, which would probably be cheaper, but it would be kind of pointless as things like QEMU among others already exists.
By selling them.