Late “open source” bloom is taking place within the global semiconductor industry. ARM, a British semiconductor design company, out put a program that allows companies to use semiconductor design portfolios at a reasonable price. In South Korea, a system semiconductor design company had worked with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) to help companies use ARM’s solutions for free. Majority within the global semiconductor industry believes that such move by ARM is aware of “RISC-V”-centered open source platform that has recently become a sensation within the global chip design industry. This open source that is based on “collective intelligence” has a potential for significant development due to its inexpensive cost and easy expandability. Furthermore, multinational IT companies such as Samsung Electronics, Google, Alibaba, and Qualcomm are taking notice of the open source platform giving it more chances of growth.
◊ARM starts to lower entry barriers to its intellectual properties
ARM sells ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) and various IPs (Intellectual Property) on design to semiconductor design companies. ISA is a language that gives commands to cores that play a role of “workers” within a CPU. Based on a pack of commands developed by ARM, semiconductor design companies develop microarchitectures that are like the blueprint of a chip.
As amount of information that a smartphone application processor (AP) has to process has started to increase, ARM introduced the Cortex-A series that is made up of complicated and advanced commands and the Cortex-R and the Cortex-M series that are made up of less complicated commands. Due to its unrivaled technologies, it had been receiving an expensive royalty from semiconductor design companies that use ARM’s ISA and it has established itself as a powerhouse within the market for a long time.
However, ARM has changed its business recently. While it used to make profits through an expensive royalty, it has started to drastically lower entry barriers to its semiconductor solutions.
Its “Flexible Access” that started last year is a prime example. By paying a certain amount, a company can freely use ARM’s IPs necessary for chip development.
ARM recently started a program called “Flexible Access for Startup” also. This program allows new design companies to use ARM’s IPs at no cost. ARM decided to work with the MSS regarding this program.
The industry believes that the appearance of RISC-V, which has become a new “trend” in past few years, as one of main reasons why ARM, which has made a huge amount of profit through royalty, has started to make unprecedented attempts.
◊RISC-V offers low cost and expandability
RISC-V’s history goes back to 1980s. It used to be called “RISC-I” that was used by UC Berkley for a research purpose and now it has become a popular ISA that is drawing interests from top semiconductor design companies.
The biggest strength of RISC-V compared to ARM’s IPs is its “open source”. Unlike ARM’s IPs that are very expensive, anyone can design a chip at a relatively low cost by utilizing open source that can be found on the internet or RISC-V Foundation’s website.
Another advantage of RISC-V is its ability to expand a chip’s functions relatively easily.
When a chip is designed based on ARM’s IP, one needs to purchase ARM’s architecture license in order to add more commands that upgrade the chip’s functions.
However, RISC-V provides a basic and free ISA and allows commands to be added freely. As a result, a possibility to upgrade a chip’s functions at a low cost is endless.
Also, because it is easy to design “customized chips”, it is very simple to develop a low-power chip with high specifications through RISC-V. Fact that the performance of a chip developed based on RISC-V is not much different from that of a chip developed based on ARM’s IP is also appealing to semiconductor chip companies.
Experts evaluate that RISC-V’s ISA level has reached the level of the ARM Cortex-A55 series that is ARM’s highest microarchitecture.
Fact that new IT markets have been created due to an emergence of IoT (Internet of Things), AR (Augmented Reality), and wearable devices since 2010 is another crucial reason why RISC-V has become so popular. Many companies are attempting to design chips using RISC-V in new markets where there are less restrictions by standardization.
“While x86 and ARM’s ISA are popular for server and PC CPUs and smartphone AP respectively, RISC-V will be able to lay its footing in a wide range of industries from ultra-low power computing to high-performance computing.” said Professor Kim Ji-hoon of Ewha Womans University. “Relevant industries and the global research world are highly interested in RISC-V.”
Not only is RISC-V used by new chip design companies, but it is also actively utilized by multinational semiconductor companies such as Samsung Electronics, Google, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, and Western Digital.
PULP, which is a group of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, is actively working on development of an architecture utilizing RISC-V in order to develop low-power chips and it is working with top IT companies such as NXP from Netherland, Google, and STMicroelectronics from Switzerland.
◊Semiconductor design companies enjoying the open source trend
As the ecosystem centered on ARM has started to crack due to an emergence and rapid growth of RISC-V, ARM has no choice but to adjust its strategies in order to maintain and secure its customers.
Semiconductor design companies are delighted with the open source trend that started from RISC-V as they are able to save costs and secure opportunities for innovation through competitions that have started to take place within the market naturally.
“We see this trend as positive as it has become more accessible to develop SoC (System on Chip).” said a representative for the industry.
Although some see RISC-V’s growth encouraging, some see that ARM’s products are far more advanced in stability and convenience.
“Although there is a huge possibility for RISC-V’s growth, it is true that conservative markets that require high level of reliability are still preferring ARM’s products.” said a high-ranking official of a South Korean fabless company. “However, things will start to change once RISC-V is utilized more extensively.”
Staff Reporter Kang, Hyeryung | kang@etnews.com