RISC-V International emits more open CPU specs

RISC-V International has grown its pile of royalty-free, open specifications, with additional documents covering firmware, hypervisors, and more. RISC-V – pronounced "risk five", and not to be confused with the other architecture of that name, RISC-5 – essentially sets out how a CPU core should work from a software point of …

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally a potential brake on the general computing apocalypse we're sleep walking into with the way M$ is abusing UEFI

[brainwrong]

V or 5

I always assumed it was pronounced "risk vee", because that's what's written.

If there is a risc-5, then calling it "vee" would seem to be a sensible thing.

At least their trying to tell us a bit earlier in the game, rather than waiting 20 years and then telling everyone it's jif.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: V or 5

Even though I know it means "five" I still pronounce it "vee" or no one knows which is being talked about.

And as V is the Roman numeral for 5 I don't see the problem with using "vee"; "RISC Five" is the RISC five chip labelled "RISC-5", "RISC Vee" is the RISC five chip labelled "RISC-V".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: V or 5

Yep, I know it's 5 yet still say/think 'V'. Sort of like in the movie V for Vendetta, which alludes to that his name is 5 (named after a room number), but is still pronounced 'V'.

[Anonymous Coward]

I dream of a day I can run free software on free hardware :D

[Tom 7]

I worry that that will only be legal for a day!

[Anonymous Coward]

and the inter-web melts in China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, ...

The major selling points of the Swiss based RISC-V International's technology, are the spec's, reference designs, test suites, compilers, Linux kernel modules, toolchains, ... are all outside US, EU, UK, Japanese, Korean, ... sanctions, despite being developed in the West.

The inter-web well may melt, in the coming weeks, national firewalls permitting, as every engineer in China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, ... downloads a set of the latest free Swiss specs, associated reference designs, and toolchains. As many a replacement T-90M battle tank is needed, with non French fire control systems, drones without Japanese electronics, ... . Which many an enterprising local, and likely Government funded startups, will likely start to assemble the free modules into sanctions avoiding alternates; ensuring the architecture has a future.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: and the inter-web melts in China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, ...

Spoken like someone who believes in the militarization of thought processes and ideas. :(

[BlokeInTejas]

Re: and the inter-web melts in China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, ...

Architecture is just paperwork.

To replace your tank’s fire control system you need actual silicon. A bunch of pdfs won’t do much for you.

Vlad’s paradise doesn’t make chips.

[herman]

Re: and the inter-web melts in China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, ...

You also need a whole lot of other parts.

However, there one could go retro and build an analogue fire control system. It is just as accurate and doesn’t need all these newfangled digital parts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: and the inter-web melts in China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, ...

Open Source makes things legal to copy and develop. If you don’t care about being legal, you can pirate anything you want (x86, ARM, etc)

That’s before the obvious point that designing a CPU ISA is something any undergrad could do…