Is MIPS still a big enough name to make this much of a coup for RISC-V? Or is this the last-ditch effort of a fallen star of the semi market?
One big difference is most consumers, and I think even many companies using the chips, don't really care what architecture they are using, unlike with an end-user OS/"ecosystem". So if they can use their abilities and experience from MIPS to make RISC-V chips with good price to performance, they could do OK.
Mips has seemingly been on life support sine the late 90's. I kind of think the SGI buyout and later spin-off doomed them as they were focused on building high performance workstation processors while Arm was busy focusing on low power and embedded systems. Guess who was better prepared for the mobile revolution of the 00's?
Most of Broadcoms stuff is ARM based now, which is what most folks are putting in white label switches.
In contrast, with RISC-V you can put your hand in your pocket for early models, can't you?
You can buy them on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W2J9B8J
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/?qs=pUKx8fyJudB1sOWbbEn...
> Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.
Clearly not!
Interestingly it's based on a 3 stage core from SiFive, not the RocketChip.
At one point there were a few more MIPS and even OpenPOWER solution on NAS and router, but at the end having everything on ARM is just so much easier. Little sad to see it go. Especially good old Broadcom MIPS tends to be exceptionally stable.
(I've got a single board computer from those people that I got in, I think, 2019)
No, not at this point. RISC-V already has plenty of momentum without this. The only thing that might change that analysis is if MIPS has some architecture patents that they could leverage to get some kind of RISC-V performance advantage. But I doubt they have anything like that now. And it's not like they have a stable of CPU designers that are now going to be switched from working on MIPS to working on RISC-V - they likely haven't had any of those folks working there since the 90s.
1. Stick with MIPS for as long as possible.
2. Follow MIPS into RISC-V.
3. Or go to some other camp.
Not really, I think the only thing they have going for them is that they probably have IP cores that would port easily and have history. However, places like SiFive [1] appear to have early mover advantage and are likely to be quicker to gain critical mass.