Semiconductor open source architecture RISC-V on the rise, Huawei, Ali and other Chinese firms actively involved

(Global TMT 2022, March 16, 2012) In the field of semiconductor development, "RISC-V" is on the rise, one of the instruction set architectures (ISA) that define the basic specifications for semiconductors, and has been developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, since 2010.The biggest advantage of RISC-V is that it is completely free and open source. V's biggest advantage is that it is completely free and open source. Recently RISC-V's presence has been elevated. The standard is first and foremost being used continuously in areas such as wearables and smart appliances, with predictions suggesting that by 2025 the adoption rate will reach nearly 30%.

In China, wearable device vendors such as Huami Technology have been adopting this architecture. Alibaba Group developed an AI chip for IoT based on RISC-V and made its IP public. Previously, it was reported that Huawei provided the first RISC-V architecture-based Hi3861 chip for Hongmai system developers for the Hongmai development board.

Overseas large IT companies are also actively adopting RISC-V. Google in the United States launched a new smartphone "Pixel 6" series in October 2021, and developed semiconductors for this series using RISC-V to protect data. Apple in the United States has started recruiting "RISC-V programmers" on its job board. Western Digital has proposed a policy of replacing the control semiconductors in storage devices with RISC-V products. Japanese companies, such as Sony Semiconductor Solutions and Hitachi, have also joined the group.