Because it is important: Both Arm and x86 processor architectures made their fair share of mistakes when they were first introduced to the market. You might think that developers working with the open-source RISC-V would have learned from them by now, but you’d be wrong — at least according to Linux creator Linus Torvalds. He believes that RISC-V is destined to repeat the same mistakes that Arm and x86 made as they gained traction. One reason for this is the huge gap that exists between software and hardware developers.
Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, believes that RISC-V will likely repeat the same mistakes made by Arm and x86 architectures as it evolves to become more complex and meet market demands. In a broader sense, this is a common point of debate when discussing the future of processor architectures and the trade-offs between simplicity and feature-rich designs.
Torvalds said in an interview that this is a trend that seems to happen every time a new technology is introduced. “One of the frustrations I had when Arm became a server platform was that they repeated all the mistakes that I had seen a decade or two earlier on x86,” he explained.
RISC-V is a relatively new, open-source instruction set architecture (ISA) based on reduced instruction set computing (RISC) principles. Developed at the University of California, Berkeley in 2010, it has gained considerable momentum, and by the end of 2022, more than 10 billion chips containing RISC-V cores will have shipped.
It is making inroads, particularly in China, where some tech companies are using it to circumvent US sanctions. Last month, Hong Kong manufacturer DeepComputing unveiled a laptop based on the RISC-V ISA. However, it is still not at the performance level needed to compete with current-generation x86 and Arm processors.
One reason developers seem destined to reinvent the wheel is the significant gap between hardware and software developers, which makes it difficult to coordinate efforts effectively, Torvalds said.
“Even when you’re designing hardware in a more open way, the hardware people are different enough from the software people (that) there’s a pretty big gap between Verilog and even the kernel, way up the stack where you’re working on things that are so far removed from the hardware that you really have no idea how the hardware works,” he said.
Additionally, a new generation of people involved in RISC-V development may not be aware of past issues, leading to a “we didn’t think of that” scenario for some features, he added.
For these reasons, Torvalds suggests that it will take a few generations of RISC-V processors to identify and address unforeseen problems.
Still, RISC-V is likely to have an easier time breaking into the market compared to previous architectures, having already made significant advances, particularly in embedded systems and some specialized applications. That said, it faces an uphill battle in areas such as high-performance computing and mobile devices, where Arm and x86 dominate.
Some of its limitations include an ecosystem that is still relatively immature, with tools, software, and support still under development compared to established architectures, and potential compatibility issues that could arise across different implementations.
