where are they?
On the open-source front, I can right now download a RVA23 supporting RISC-V implementation, simulate the RTL and have it out perform my current Zen1 desktop per cycle in scalar code: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41331786 (see the XiangShanV3 numbers)
How long is this supposed to take?
How long until it is accepted that RISC-V looks like a semiconductor nerd snipe of epic proportion designed to divert energy away from anything that might actually work? If it was not designed for this it is definitely what it has achieved.
The absolutely essential bitmanip and vector extensions were just ratified at the end of 2021 and the also quite important vector crypto just in 2023.
Somehow I suspect in 10 years there will be a new set of extensions promising to solve all your woes.
Seriously, the way to do this is for someone to just go off and do what it takes to build a good CPU and for the ISA it uses to become the standard. Trying to do this the other way around is asking for trouble, unless sitting in committees for twenty years is actually the whole idea.
The base specifications in RISC-V were only ratified in 2019.
Source: https://riscv.org/about/#history
Both are milestones that paved the way to RISC-V's base spec ratification in 2019.
Incidentally, the Earth is estimated to be 4.54 billion years old.
It's actually worse than that, because until it's done there's no guarantee it will ever get there.
That's RVA22 and Vector 1.0.
Low-end hardware implementing the spec already exists (Milk-V Jupiter). High end implementations (e.g. Ventana Veyron V2, designed for servers) will be deployed in 2025.
Assuming you are right, getting on for four years after even this we would have a high performance implementation of it to look at which proves that it really is everything needed . . .
Except we don't.
Until we do all you have is a dream.
Typically (and quite consistently) there are 3 years from that point to products you can buy cheaply sitting on shelves.
Thus, expect some fun in 2025.
To re-iterate: you have no basis for saying it is high performance because it has not been shown to be so.
When a track record has been established _then_ claims of this kind can be made, but not before.
I have worked with chip makers at both ends (I was doing games which they used for testing, but they also tried to get our input for what their next designs should do) and honestly learned that these people are absolute dreamers. This was not helped by the nearly constant regularity with which we found performance destroying design flaws. Some prototypes were aborted as a result (dramatic overheating is quite a problem) but most products launched to go nowhere since they were now unspectacular.
The dreaming is necessary to enable them to get up and try again, but it means you should not believe a word they say until it works.
It is also unreasonable to think that each and every industry veteran who has designed successful, competitive high performance microarchitectures in the past and is now working on RISC-V IP is for some reason suddenly unable to deliver.
Waiting will give you confirmation, in the form of seeing your competitor's successful products in the market, but at the cost of missing your own chance.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Essential for what? RISC-V was not just created for high performance of application cores.
The first couple years RISC-V was mostly for university research work.
Turning it into a fully capable alternative only started later and yes, that takes a number of years.
> Somehow I suspect in 10 years there will be a new set of extensions promising to solve all your woes.
Its about delivering the same as Intel/ARM and they have that now. Yes, in 10 years more extentions will exist, this is true for RISC-V and ARM and x86.
> Seriously, the way to do this is for someone to just go off and do what it takes to build a good CPU and for the ISA
No it doesn't happen that way because the company wouldn't do that wouldn't open source their ISA design. Or at least not historically.
So a different path was taken to create and open standard and it worked out pretty well, even if it doesn't do what your imagination wants.