Interest in the open-source ISA marks a significant shift among chipmakers, but it will require continued industry support to be successful.

The open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) is attracting a lot of attention across the semiconductor industry, but its long-term success will depend on levels of cooperation never seen before in the semiconductor industry. The big question now is how committed the industry is to RISC-V’s success.

The real value that RISC-V brings is the promise of an ecosystem and the opportunity for experts within the industry to collectively work on the ISA’s future. That ecosystem may not exist yet, but a road map for the future—much like the Moore’s Law road map that drove fabrication technology for more than a half-century—does exist.

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Tags: Ecosystem, FPGA Designs, FPGAs, Instruction Set Ar, ISA, Open Source ISA, RISC-V