Explaining RISC-V: An x86 & ARM Alternative — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01[Music]
2. 0:12welcome to another video from explaining
3. 0:15computers
4. 0:17this time i'm going to talk about risk 5
5. 0:21which is an alternative processor
6. 0:23technology that's already being used in
7. 0:25microcontrollers and embedded devices
8. 0:28and which may one day power mobile
9. 0:31desktop and server computers
10. 0:34specifically risk 5 is a free and open
11. 0:38instruction set architecture or isa that
12. 0:41may become a major competitor to the
13. 0:44closed is using today's x86 and arm cpus
14. 0:50in this video i'm going to provide a
15. 0:52non-technical overview of risk 5
16. 0:54starting with the difference between
17. 0:56open and closed isas
18. 1:00i'll then discuss the origins of risk 5
19. 1:02introduce some of its key market players
20. 1:05and explore current and potential future
21. 1:07hardware and applications
22. 1:10finally i'll say something about risk 5
23. 1:13global politics and limits on
24. 1:15international trade as these will play
25. 1:17the most significant role in determining
26. 1:20risk 5's success
27. 1:27today practically all computers are
28. 1:30based on one of two closed instruction
29. 1:32set architectures the first of these is
30. 1:35x86 or technically x8664
31. 1:39with most desktops laptops and servers
32. 1:41having an x86 processor from intel or
33. 1:44amd
34. 1:46the x86 isa was created by intel and
35. 1:49then extended into its current 64-bit
36. 1:52incarnation by amd with the two
37. 1:54companies having licensing agreements
38. 1:56that allow both of them to design and
39. 1:58sell x86 cpus
40. 2:02alongside x86 today's other dominant isa
41. 2:06is arm with practically all android and
42. 2:08ios devices and new apple computers
43. 2:11having a processor based on arm
44. 2:13intellectual property
45. 2:15many different companies design and
46. 2:17manufacture arm processors but because
47. 2:20the arm isa is closed they all have to
48. 2:22pay license fees to arm limited which
49. 2:24hence maintains control of its
50. 2:26technology
51. 2:28in contrast the risk 5 isa is free and
52. 2:32open this means that anybody can design
53. 2:35and sell a risk 5 processor core without
54. 2:38any constraints on their actions
55. 2:40the designs for risk 5 cores may then be
56. 2:43used in the design of microcontrollers
57. 2:46cpus systems on a chip or other
58. 2:48components which may in turn be
59. 2:50manufactured in a fabrication plant
60. 2:54whilst the risk 5 isa is free and open
61. 2:58it's up to the designers of risk 5 cores
62. 3:00and chips to decide whether the
63. 3:02intellectual property they have created
64. 3:04will be placed in the public domain
65. 3:07this means that not all risk 5
66. 3:09technology is open hardware with some
67. 3:12risk 5 core and chip designs being open
68. 3:15and some being closed
69. 3:18in addition to having no intellectual
70. 3:20property restrictions the risk 5 isa can
71. 3:23also be freely extended
72. 3:25new instructions are added via a custom
73. 3:28isa extension which does not break
74. 3:30compatibility with the main risk 5
75. 3:32specification this gives designers great
76. 3:35flexibility to incorporate new
77. 3:37instructions for their particular
78. 3:38applications which can be particularly
79. 3:41liberating when creating custom
80. 3:43processors for use in cars robots and a
81. 3:46wide range of other industrial and
82. 3:48consumer products
83. 3:56risk stands for reduced instruction set
84. 3:58computing and describes a computing
85. 4:00architecture that executes a large
86. 4:03number of simple instructions to
87. 4:04complete a task
88. 4:06an alternative to risk is sisk which
89. 4:09stands for complex instruction set
90. 4:11computing and executes a small number of
91. 4:14more complex instructions to complete a
92. 4:16processing activity
93. 4:18today the difference between risk and
94. 4:20cisc is more blurry than it used to be
95. 4:24but we may still describe the x86 isa as
96. 4:27cisc and the arm isa at risk
97. 4:32so what about risk five well risk five
98. 4:36is a specific risk processor
99. 4:38architecture whose development commenced
100. 4:40in may 2010 in the parallel computing
101. 4:43laboratory at the university of
102. 4:45california berkeley
103. 4:47one of the first ever risk architectures
104. 4:50was created at berkeley between 1980 and
105. 4:531984 with risk 5 getting its name
106. 4:56because it's the 5th generation of
107. 4:58berkeley risk
108. 5:00risk 5 was initially created to support
109. 5:02research and education with the first
110. 5:04risk 5 instruction set manual published
111. 5:07as an open source document in may 2011.
112. 5:16to make it possible for risk 5 to be
113. 5:19used in industry in 2015 a non-profit
114. 5:22governing body was established
115. 5:24this was initially called the risk-five
116. 5:26foundation and based in the united
117. 5:29states
118. 5:30however due to concerns relating to the
119. 5:32potential impact of future u.s trade
120. 5:35regulations in 2020 risk five's
121. 5:37governing body relocated to switzerland
122. 5:40and became risk five international
123. 5:43today risk five international has over
124. 5:45two thousand member organizations with
125. 5:48premier members including alibaba cloud
126. 5:51google huawei intel cy5 star 5 and
127. 5:56western digital
128. 5:58strategic members also include all
129. 6:00winner arduino ibm nokia nvidia qualcomm
130. 6:05raspberry pi rockchip samsung seagate
131. 6:08and sony
132. 6:09so as we can see there is widespread
133. 6:12support for risc-5 development across
134. 6:14the computing industry
135. 6:17many organizations have also developed
136. 6:20risk 5 processor cores
137. 6:22a leading player is sci-5 which was
138. 6:25founded in 2015 by the team who designed
139. 6:28the risk 5 isa at uc berkeley
140. 6:31in 2016 sci-5 became the first company
141. 6:34to release a risk 5 system on a chip and
142. 6:37has now developed three families of risk
143. 6:395 cores that span from energy efficient
144. 6:42microcontrollers to high performance
145. 6:44processors able to run full operating
146. 6:46systems these core designs are sold to
147. 6:49other companies to use in their products
148. 6:52with sci-fi reporting that billions of
149. 6:54chips have already been shipped based on
150. 6:56their risk 5 cores
151. 6:58just one high-profile customer is
152. 7:00samsung who incorporates sci-fi cores
153. 7:03into components that include ai image
154. 7:06sensors and 5g modules
155. 7:10another leading player is t-head
156. 7:12t-head is the semiconductor division of
157. 7:15alibaba and over the past few years has
158. 7:18introduced a family of risk five cores
159. 7:20called shantae
160. 7:22applications range from basic
161. 7:24microcontrollers networking and 5g
162. 7:27telecommunications to industrial
163. 7:28automation information security computer
164. 7:31vision and autonomous driving
165. 7:34in october 2021 t-head open source for
166. 7:37design of four of its shantae cores as
167. 7:40well as indicating that it would open
168. 7:42source more risk 5 cores in the future
169. 7:45according to the company over 2 billion
170. 7:47cpus with ashante architecture have now
171. 7:50been shipped
172. 7:53in addition to sci-5 and t-head other
173. 7:56notable developers of risc-v processors
174. 7:58include undased technology all winner
175. 8:01cloudbear codasip iconic works nuclei
176. 8:05star 5 sintercore and western digital
177. 8:09at the time of making this video at
178. 8:11least 111 risk 5 core designs have been
179. 8:14placed in the public domain by 55
180. 8:16organizations or individuals along with
181. 8:18the designs for 12 complete risk 5
182. 8:21systems on a chip
183. 8:23other risk 5 cores and socs have been
184. 8:25developed but remain closed source
185. 8:28this is also to be expected and as
186. 8:31previously noted we should not expect
187. 8:32the designs of all risk 5 cores or final
188. 8:35processors to become open source
189. 8:44the first company to launch a risk 5
190. 8:46processor and development hardware was
191. 8:49cy5 when it released the freedom
192. 8:52everywhere 310 soc and its first
193. 8:55high-five development board in 2016.
194. 8:59as we can see this board has since been
195. 9:01discontinued that's hardly a surprise
196. 9:03but since it was released billions of
197. 9:06risk-fired processor cores have been
198. 9:08incorporated into microcontrollers and
199. 9:10embedded devices which means that risk 5
200. 9:13is already becoming mainstream in this
201. 9:15marketplace
202. 9:17the work of western digital who have
203. 9:19developed a family of risk 5 cores
204. 9:21called swerve to use in ssd controllers
205. 9:24also indicates how many of us are
206. 9:27increasingly going to be using risk 5
207. 9:29technology even if we're unaware of it
208. 9:33when it comes to desktop computing risk
209. 9:355 hardware currently remains
210. 9:37developmental and in recent videos i've
211. 9:40reviewed these single board computers
212. 9:44specifically here we have the vision 5
213. 9:47which is based on a star 5 soc with two
214. 9:50sci-fi view 74 cores and the nasar which
215. 9:53is based on an all-winner soc with a
216. 9:56single t-head c906 core
217. 9:59both of these development boards can run
218. 10:01a full linux operating system with a
219. 10:03graphical desktop and hence demonstrate
220. 10:05the potential for rs5 to one day join
221. 10:08x86 and arm in the tablet laptop and
222. 10:11desktop marketplace
223. 10:13absolutely there is some way to go
224. 10:15before we have risk 5 chips powerful
225. 10:17enough to make high performance price
226. 10:19competitive desktop computers and
227. 10:21servers
228. 10:22but unlike some in the computing
229. 10:25industry i do believe that this is going
230. 10:28to happen
231. 10:35there are i think two key reasons why
232. 10:38risk five is going to become a
233. 10:40mainstream end-user computing platform
234. 10:43and the first of these is what we could
235. 10:45term the nvidia effect because for some
236. 10:48time it looked like nvidia was going to
237. 10:50purchase arm limited and that made many
238. 10:53companies rather nervous because they're
239. 10:55worried about whether nvidia will
240. 10:57continue to license to them the arm isa
241. 11:00and even though the deal has fallen
242. 11:02through nvidia is not going to purchase
243. 11:04arm limited it has left a legacy with
244. 11:07companies more nervous more aware than
245. 11:09they used to be but they rely on
246. 11:11licensing the arm isa from arm limited
247. 11:14and they can't guarantee the future of
248. 11:16that company and inevitably this is
249. 11:19making companies go towards the idea of
250. 11:22using list five in their products
251. 11:26secondly and related and far more
252. 11:28significant is the fact that over the
253. 11:30past 30 years or so all countries have
254. 11:33become far more dependent on
255. 11:34microprocessors in in their economy
256. 11:36that's obvious we all use computers all
257. 11:38of the time and in parallel with that
258. 11:41we've seen a liberalization of
259. 11:43globalization and of international trade
260. 11:46and so across the past 30 years even
261. 11:48though all countries have become very
262. 11:50dependent on microprocessors they've
263. 11:52done so in an environment where they
264. 11:53haven't been too concerned about the
265. 11:55fact that access to those
266. 11:57microprocessors could be constrained
267. 12:00however in the past few years that has
268. 12:02started to change
269. 12:04for start we've seen significant trade
270. 12:06barriers going up between united states
271. 12:08and china and very recently we've seen
272. 12:12russia's invasion of ukraine and all the
273. 12:14sanctions being placed on russia as a
274. 12:16result of that and this has got lots of
275. 12:19countries thinking about the fact that
276. 12:20they aren't guaranteed to always have
277. 12:23access to microprocessors with close
278. 12:25isas chips from intel and amd and chips
279. 12:28with our ip license from arm
280. 12:31and so it's not a surprise that the
281. 12:34chinese government is investing in risk
282. 12:36five other chinese academy of sciences
283. 12:39it's not surprising that russia has
284. 12:40announced plans to build risk fire
285. 12:42processes to use in laptops and
286. 12:44government computers
287. 12:46and it's not surprising that for example
288. 12:48india has got an initiative for
289. 12:50semiconductor self-reliance and is also
290. 12:52looking towards risk five and i think
291. 12:54we're going to see more and more
292. 12:56countries
293. 12:57recognizing they are dependent on micro
294. 12:59processors and that closed isas are
295. 13:01potentially not a very good thing to be
296. 13:03reliant on in that context and looking
297. 13:05towards developing their own
298. 13:06microprocessor industries and basing
299. 13:08that around risk five
300. 13:11and to me it doesn't seem treadable that
301. 13:12that will happen and that we'll see some
302. 13:16countries starting to use risk five in
303. 13:18their desktops and laptops and servers
304. 13:20and things and other countries won't i
305. 13:22think once the technology exists to use
306. 13:24ritz 5 in a mobile device in the desktop
307. 13:27in the server it'll start to be using
308. 13:29those devices all around the world
309. 13:31and that doesn't mean that risk 5 will
310. 13:33become the best technology it might not
311. 13:35be as good as x86 has on for many of
312. 13:37these purposes but it will work and it
313. 13:39will be available and so i think in five
314. 13:42to 10 years time we won't have two
315. 13:45dominant isas x6 and arm we will have
316. 13:48three which will be x86 arm and risk
317. 13:51five
318. 13:53anyway that is now it for this video if
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325. 14:11[Music]
326. 14:23you