MIPS snags top SiFive brains to amp up RISC-V business
- Reference: 1704306429
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/01/03/mips_sifive_hires/
- Source link:
MIPS, the company that created the processor architecture of the same name, is now looking to the RISC-V open instruction set architecture for new products under the [1]eVocore name. The eVocore P8700 has been shipping since December 2022.
The company has now appointed Drew Barbier as VP of products and Brad Burgess as chief architect to help drive further development and market take-up of its products.
[2]
Both execs were formerly at SiFive, one of the more prominent companies in the RISC-V landscape, which underwent a [3]dramatic restructuring of its business last year with 20 percent of staff laid off. This was understood to include some of the management team as well as engineers.
[4]
[5]
Burgess was SiFive's chief CPU architect, and has upwards of three decades of experience with various processor architectures including ARM, 68000, PowerPC, and x86, as well as RISC-V. He will be responsible for development of all new key product designs, MIPS told us.
Barbier served for more than six years at SiFive as senior director of product management, and also previously worked for Arm and Analog Devices. He will oversee MIPS' product roadmap.
[6]
"I am very excited to have both Drew and Brad join the team at this crucial time in MIPS' journey as we embark on a new path for the company," said CEO Sameer Wasson in a statement.
[7]Ventana bumps performance on Veyron RISC-V silicon to surely speed up servers
[8]Synopsys joins RISC-V party with trio of embedded core designs
[9]Hardware hacker: Walling off China from RISC-V ain't such a great idea, Mr President
[10]Google formally gets to work on Android on RISC-V
Wasson himself was only appointed as chief last September, joining MIPS after 18 years at Texas Instruments, most recently as VP for the processor business unit.
This year marks four decades since MIPS was founded, but it is now a very different company, having been through the hands of several owners, including Imagination Technologies. These days, it is a pure-play IP company, focused on developing tech such as CPU cores for customers to build into system-on-chip (SoC) products in markets including servers, automotive, and embedded applications.
RISC-V is a popular choice for many fabless chip developers as it is an open instruction set that is publicly available and which anyone is free to build a product around. The Linux Foundation and others have founded the [11]RISE Project to drive software ecosystem support for chips compliant with the RISC-V architecture.
MIPS said it will be at the [12]CES 2024 tech event in Las Vegas, January 9-12, where the company is likely to offer more detail on future developments. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/11/mips_riscv_chips/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZZXnHekNA7D89yBABjuXnQAAANM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/25/riscv_champ_sifive_said_to/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZZXnHekNA7D89yBABjuXnQAAANM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZZXnHekNA7D89yBABjuXnQAAANM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZZXnHekNA7D89yBABjuXnQAAANM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/07/ventana_riscv_server/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/07/synopsys_joins_riscv_party_with/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/07/proposed_restrictions_riscv/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/31/google_android_risc_v/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/01/linux_foundation_risc_v/
[12] https://www.ces.tech/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: World’s Most Popular CPU Architectures
No way MIPS or RISCV are 2 and 3, there must be many basic microcontroller like cpus that do boring things like scan keyboards or control the fridge light that outsell them easily. Even a basic board with a MIPS or RISCV cpu woul dhave a few of these simple CPUs controlling boring stuff like keyboards, usb etc.
Re: World’s Most Popular CPU Architectures
Arm and RISC-V have both been very rapidly replacing 8 bit MCUs in new products. They are just SO MUCH more convenient to program than a PIC or 8051, and there is now even no price advantage to 8 bit with both Arm and RISC-V being available in $0.10 MCUs with 2 or 3 KB of RAM and 16 KB flash.
Re: World’s Most Popular CPU Architectures
> And I think RISC-V might be in that league, too.
Maybe not quite, but soon.
In December 2022 at the RISC-V summit we were told more than 10 billion chips with RISC-V in them. I don't know if that was updated this year, but Qualcomm said they shipped a billion chips with RISC-V in them in 2023. Back in 2017 Western Digital announced they would soon be shipping over a billion RISC-V chips a year. I haven't seen updates on that. In December 2019 Samsung said the Galaxy S20 would have RISC-V cores controlling the 5G radio and the camera. Assuming that has continued and spread through the range that's quite a few cores too. Samsung certainly continues to be interested in RISC-V. They are porting DotNET and their Tizen operating system to RISC-V for use (according to job adverts) in future TVs and other products.
Re: World’s Most Popular CPU Architectures
So how long before we see a RISC-V machine in the Top500 supercomputer list? Before the decade is out, maybe?
Yeh so brainy they dont actually do any work and pay the real workers peanuts.
World’s Most Popular CPU Architectures
Last I heard, more ARM chips ship per year than the entire population of the Earth. And I think RISC-V might be in that league, too.
The world’s third-most popular CPU architecture might still be MIPS. The last figure I had for that was something like 840 million chips per year. Of course, there would be hardly any money left in those chips nowadays, in terms of IP Ilcensing.