Who makes money with an open-source ISA, the current state of the RISC-V ecosystem, and what differentiates one vendor from the next.
semiengineering.com, Oct. 24, 2019 –
SE: How do you make money off an open ISA?
Nikhil: We do systems around RISC-V cores to help bring those cores to market. There are lots of open source cores out there and they get a lot of attention, but between getting a core and actually fitting it out in a system – comparing multiple different cores and figuring out which one might be best for you, measuring them in some scientific way – all of that requires certain kinds of infrastructure around it. Our company focuses on that kind of work, building products that will help you evaluate RISC cores, have a platform where you can modify RISC cores and have a complete system running around it, et cetera. It's not making money on the core itself. It is on the things around it.
SE: So the picks and shovels for the miners?
Nikhil: The picks and shovels and the jeans.
Wachs: We are really enabling extreme customization and faster time to market, and that is one thing RISC-V enables because of its extremely customizable ISA. We can build an extremely customizable SoC around that.