Comment by LeFantome

Not to be pedantic, but…

Acorn Computers started off much earlier (I owned an Acorn Atom when it was released) which begat the Electron, then the BBC Micro and then the Archimedes.

At that time ARM was just an architecture owned by Acorn. They created it with VSLI technology (Acorn’s Silicon partner) and used the first RISC chip in the BBC Micro before then pivoting it to the Archimedes.

Whilst Acorn itself was initially purchased by Olivetti, who eventually sold what remained years later to Morgan Stanley.

The ARM division was spun off as “Advanced RISC Machines” in a deal with both Apple, and VSLI Technology after Olivetti came onto the scene.

It is this company that we now know as Arm Holdings.

So it’s not entirely accurate to claim “they had a full computer system” as that was Acorn Computers, PLC.

> RISC-V isn't competitive in 2024, but that doesn't mean that it still won't be competitive in 2030 or 2035.

We can't know and won't for up to until 2030 or 2035. Humans are just not very good when it comes projecting the future (if predictions of 1950-60's were correct, I would be typing this up from my cozy cosmic dwelling on a Jovian or a Saturnian moon after all).

History has had numerous examples when better ISA and CPU designs have lost out to a combination or mysteries and other compounding factors that are usually attributed to «market forces» (whatever that means to whomever). The 1980-90's were the heydays of some of the most brilliant ISA designs and nearly everyone was confident that a design X or Y would become dominant, or the next best thing, or anywhere in between. Yet, we were left with a x86 monopoly for several decades that has only recently turned into a duopoly because of the arrival of ARM into the mainstream and through a completely unexpected vector: the advent of smartphones. It was not the turn than anyone expected.

And since innovations tend to be product oriented, it is not possible to even design, leave alone build, a product with something does not exist yet. Breaking a new ground in the CPU design requires an involvement of a large number of driving and very un–mysterious (so to speak) forces, exorbitant investment (from the product design and manufacturing perspectives) that are available to the largest incumbents only. And even that is not guaranteed as we have seen it with the Itanium architecture.

So unless the incumbents commit and follow through, it is not likely (at least not obvious) that RISC-V will enter the mainstream and will rather remain a niche (albeit a viable one). Within the realms of possibility it can be assessed as «maybe» at this very moment.

But then there is the software ecosystem issue.

Having a competitive CPU is 1% of the job. Then you need To have a competitive SoC (oh and not infringe IP), so that you can build the software ecosystem, which is the hard bit.

> As far as I am aware, there is nothing about the RISC-V architecture which inherently prevents it from ever being competitive with ARM

Lack of reg+shifted reg addressing mode and or things like BFI/UBFX/TBZ

The perpetual promise of magic fusion inside the cores has not played out. No core exists to my knowledge that fuses more than two instructions at a time. Most of those take more than two to make. Thus no core exists that could fuse them.

>would you really stick with ARM - knowing what they tried to do with Qualcomm?

Business are actually happen how the ALA is proven in court.

In my article I only say that it is currently slow and that there are various initiatives to make it fast and I am hopeful for the future.

Correct.

Also correct: RISC-V is not anywhere near competitive to ARM at the level that Qualcomm operates.

There are preview builds of Geekbench that are native RISC-V.

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