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Comment by sweden | Hacker News Reader

You are talking like you could download RISC-V from the internet and send it to the foundry for mass production without additional costs or effort.

RISC-V is just a document, is not an implementation. There are many costs involved into designing a CPU that end up costing much more money than paying a license fee.

Check this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14284450

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In that comment you say "RISC-V is thrown around like if it's an already working CPU but it is not" which is false since there are multiple existing, functioning RISC-V implementations in silicon (https://www.sifive.com/products/freedom/), FPGAs and software (https://bellard.org/riscvemu/).

Most people on HN should understand the difference between an ISA specification and its implementation in silicon.

The tone of your comment is very unfortunate taking into account the content of it.

The second like you showed is just a simple FPGA implementation, you can't really use for ASIC designs.

The first one is a completely different implementation by a different company. And they are not really providing the whole source. I challenge you to find a place to download their designs yourself. I will be waiting.

The second is real silicon. I have a couple. But all this talk is missing the point. For companies looking to design a product for which the processors is a means to an end, RISC-V holds a tremendous time-to-market advantage and full complete control of your own destiny. That, more than anything, will matter for the 1st wave of adopters. (RV has other technical merits that you for some reason discount).

How about this: http://www.pulp-platform.org/ ? It still in development, but the plan is to release the full CPU. You still need process/foundry specific data of course (things like flash-cells).

Pulp seems to be just a microcontroller, not a modern CPU. It is a good effort but you wouldn't be using it on a normal computer.

The GAP8 is a real product based on the pulpino. It's a cpu, more of a low-power embedded dsp/mcu, and a good one at that.

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330188

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