SiFive is back with another 64-bit RISC-V dev board – hopefully

SiFive has promised the world another HiFive RISC-V development system featuring a 64-bit out-of-order processor for engineers and other curious techies to try out. Dubbed the HiFive Premier P550 and unveiled in time for the Embedded World conference in Germany this week, this modest computer uses a Chinese system-on-chip …

[3arn0wl]

Next generation silicon

With more performant and efficient RISC-V processors like this one, the XuanTie C930 and the Sophgo SG2380 now appearing, it really oughtn't to be too long now before we start seeing consumer devices - [probably Chinese] phones running Android or AOSP-based OSs, Chromebooks, and hopefully some laptops with Linux pre-installed. These could arrive as soon as the end of the year/Q1 2025 [in time for "China 2025"].

[Bruce Hoult]

For sure it’s not the first OoO RISC-V. That honor goes to the THead C910 that shipped last year in the quad core TH1520 SoC Sipeed Lichee Pi 4A and other devices) and the 64 core SG2042 (Milk-V Pioneer).

The P550 should be about 50% faster per core than those, and comparable to the Arm A76 SBCs (Pi 5 and the various RK3588). But the Pioneer’s 64 cores should win on anything that can use at least six of them.

Also of course the SG2380 coming at the end of the year with 16 of SiFive’s own higher performance P670 cores is worth waiting for.

[Anonymous Coward]

And there's BOOM (Berkeley Out-of-Order Machine) that's an out of order RISCV with versions freely available for a long time.

[Bruce Hoult]

You need to distinguish between an abstract design for a CPU core (which is what BOOM, C910, P550 are) and someone taking that and adding all the other stuff around it to make an SoC, then making an ASIC (chip) from that, and then putting that on a board that anyone can buy and have delivered to their home.

There are a lot of steps between the first part and the final result.

[pimppetgaeghsr]

Few of which will ever have enough allocated capital. Most RISC-V startups are just hoping to get acquired.

[3arn0wl]

@Bruce

Is the Milk-V Oasis still expected to arrive in August, do you know?

TIA

[Bartholomew]

I wonder was the Intel Sunseting of the RISC-V Pathfinder Program expanded

Was the death of Horse Creek at Intel last year, to save money.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-sunsets-network-switch-biz-kills-risc-v-pathfinder-program

"Update 1/28/2022 6am PT: An Intel representative responded to our queries, telling us that the decision to end the Intel Pathfinder for RISC-V has no impact on Intel Foundry Services (IFS) or the Horse Creek platform. The company is still committed to supporting silicon on all three major instruction sets — x86, Arm, and RISC-V. The representative indicated that Pathfinder was an 'innovation project' from a small team at Intel, but didn't divulge a specific number of employees."