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Comment by kken | Hacker News Reader

As already noted in the comments under the linked article: This device is currently seriously lacking software support, bordering on making it unusable.

It's interesting to note that the company that developed the chip (Gigadevice) initially got big by copying microcontrollers by ST microelectronics. This went as far as copying the entire product portfolio including naming scheme and marketing strategy. (Personally I find this absolutely appalling)

I guess not having to develop a software toolchain for their devices provided a huge benefit for them. Now that they have a device that cannot rely on external tools, things look a bit more difficult...

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For a microcontroller, the chip is better supported than I had expected. All peripherals are well documented with registers clearly defined, the headers all seem to be correct, and the documentation has been translated well enough.

There are shortcomings, such as the USB example code in the SDK not building, but I'm grateful for the chance to hack on a RISC-V SoC for less than the price of a beer.

The GD marketing materials say they support the standard RISCV tool chain.

https://www.gigadevice.com/press-release/gigadevice-unveils-...

I'd been wondering if the GD32F107 was a clone of the STM32F107! Thank you for confirming that! But surely you can't honestly think that ST microcontrollers are a reasonable alternative for most electronics manufacturers? As far as I can tell, ST doesn't even offer datasheets in Chinese!

I think RISC-V software support will probably take shape pretty quickly, in the next $smallinteger years.

In terms of the ethics of cloning products from other companies, such as Linux, Chrome, Intel’s 64-bit chips, and Google Search: do you want the future to be dominated by engineers who create new things, or by owners of government-granted monopolies like copyrights, patents, and RF spectrum? Bram Cohen and Richard Stallman, or the RIAA and Verizon?

ST's microcontrollers were really popular in Chinese-designed electronics before GigaDevices cloned them, and the STM32F103 - which is the one they initially cloned - was especially so. Its popularity in China is almost certainly why they decided to clone it in the first place.

Sure, when you're desperate for decent parts, it makes sense to use overseas suppliers with long lead times and customer service and datasheets all in English. And the STM32 line is really great. But if you can instead use a domestic supplier who speaks Chinese and can get you parts in a few hours instead of a month, why wouldn't you?

It is interesting that they got their start that way - I've been wondering if the peripherals for SPI, USART, etc. work the same way in their RISC-V boards as they do on STM32/GD32 chips.

If so, one side effect of their mimicry might be that their RISC-V MCUs are much easier to get started with than their competitors'. I don't know how similar the two lines are, but it sure would be nice if you could just swap arm-none-eabi-gcc for the appropriate 32-bit RISC-V toolchain. I've been meaning to get some of the $5 Longan Nano boards carried by Seeed Studios, but the holidays are always distracting.

' GigaDevice similarly claims “complete compatibility” between its new GD32V RISC-V microcontrollers and the classic GD32 series of MCUs based on Arm. '

https://www.eetimes.com/gigadevice-intros-general-purpose-ri...

Sweet!! Can't wait to try them as drop-in-place Cortex-M replacements.

Gigadevice is indeed a very funny company.

Yiming Zhu is said to be a youth league cadre. A very opportunistic man I'd say.

He is very different from Chinese dotcom bosses. He has a ton of side businesses which he runs himself, and investments in all kinds of things, but unlike his peers he is not using his company's money, but his own cash.

Given that he is still in the business 20 years down the road while doing things his way, he is really something.

Isn't that how the world works?

Hollywood copied Edison's patents which you could consider just as bad but it resulted in a lot of new tech which we would not have.

There's LOTS of hardware that is interesting but useless due to poor software support.

Conversely there's also hardware that is less than impressive but the best option because it has good software.

who knows, sometimes plagiarists start for the low effort and then start to make good work

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