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0 pointslrem5y ago0 comments

There's also a fundamental threat to ARM in the raise of RISC-V.

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RISC-V is only a tiiny player in the low end embedded space (there are only a few parts actually available with that instruction set) and no competition at all at the high end.

Maybe in a decade or so it may be more relevant but not today. Calling this a "fundamental threat" is a tad exaggerated.

kabacha5y ago

Where are people getting the "decade" number from? Looks demand for RISC-V just went up significantly and it's not like it's broken or not-existing, RISC-V "just worked" a year ago already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19118642

janoc5y ago

The "decade" comes from the fact that there is currently no RISC-V silicon with performance anywhere near the current ARM Cortex A series.

And a realistic estimate how long it will take to develop something that would be on par with today's Snapdragon, Exynos or Apple's chips is at least those 10 years. You need quite a bit more to have a high performance processor than just the instruction set.

The "just worked" chips are microcontrollers, something you may want to put in your toaster or fridge but not a SoC at the level of e.g. Snapdragon 835 (which is an old design, at that).

Also the Sipeed chips are mostly just unoptimized reference designs, they have a fairly poor performance.

Most people who talk and hype RISC-V don't realize this.

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lremOP5y ago

But you don't buy a company for tens of billions ignoring anything that's not relevant today. You pay basing on what you predict the company will earn between today and liquidation. When Softbank originally bought ARM, no competition was on the radar. Now there is some. Hence, valuation drops.

janoc5y ago

Softbank bought ARM for $32 billion, sold for $40 billion, plus they were collecting profits during all that time. Not quite sure how that meshes with "valuation drops" ...

RISC-V in high performance computing is years out even if big players like Samsung or Qualcomm decided to switch today. New silicon takes time to develop.

And Nvidia really couldn't care less about the $1-$10 RISC-V microcontrollers that companies like SiPeed or Gigadevice are churning out today (and even there ARM micros are outselling these by several orders of magnitude).

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janoc5y ago

RISC-V is only a tiiny player in the low end embedded space (there are only a few parts actually available with that instruction set) and no competition at all at the high end.

Maybe in a decade or so it may be more relevant but not today. Calling this a "fundamental threat" is a tad exaggerated.

kabacha5y ago

janoc5y ago

The "decade" comes from the fact that there is currently no RISC-V silicon with performance anywhere near the current ARM Cortex A series.

The "just worked" chips are microcontrollers, something you may want to put in your toaster or fridge but not a SoC at the level of e.g. Snapdragon 835 (which is an old design, at that).

Also the Sipeed chips are mostly just unoptimized reference designs, they have a fairly poor performance.

Most people who talk and hype RISC-V don't realize this.

2 more replies

lremOP5y ago

janoc5y ago

Softbank bought ARM for $32 billion, sold for $40 billion, plus they were collecting profits during all that time. Not quite sure how that meshes with "valuation drops" ...

RISC-V in high performance computing is years out even if big players like Samsung or Qualcomm decided to switch today. New silicon takes time to develop.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse