Re: A shot in the head is worth two in the feet
> RISC-V is opensource
no - it isn't: it's Trademarked. there exist open source *implementations* of that Trademark: none of those implementations grant You (the Trademark Licensee) the right to use the word "RISC-V" in connection with that commercial product.
> Or modify it.
as long as you remove the word "RISC-V" if you do not seek a Trademark License in your commercial product (or do not care about Trademark Law) ... yes.
> I expect China to have it's own fabs at similar nodes by that time.
they'll have low-cost tablets and smartphones and IPTVs as soon as the software (android) is ready, because 28nm is the "low-cost sweet-spot" and you don't need more than 1.5 ghz for a *low-power* low-cost (battery-operated, mobile) processor.
but there is something really important here that everyone is missing, best explained here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24459314
there's a glacially-slow trainwreck coming, unfortunately, as it takes time for companies to appreciate that RISC-V - the "simple" RISC ISA - has been drastically *over*-simplified. it will be perfect for embedded uses (eating ARM's Embedded market), but for high-performance - particularly where software interoperability begins to matter - it's going to be a cluster****.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
