Samsung Electronics has announced that it has joined RISE (RISC-V Software Ecosystem), an open-source software development project to build and develop an advanced semiconductor ecosystem. The South Korean firm has joined the operating board of directors of RISE. The project includes other tech giants, including Google, Intel, MediaTek, Nvidia, and Qualcomm.
The Linux Foundation launched the RISE project yesterday to bring together a wide range of hardware and software firms to accelerate the availability of software for high-performance and power-efficient RISC-V CPU cores. These firms, including Samsung Electronics, will now help build operating systems and software solutions for computers and devices using RISC-V compatible processors. These processors can be used in smartphones, tablets, wearables, home appliances, data centers, and connected vehicles.
RISC-V is an open-source instruction set, unlike AMD’s x64, Intel’s x86, and ARM’s AArch64. It is seen as the future of computing. Various firms, including Qualcomm, are looking to break away from ARM’s architecture so they can develop their own chips without having to pay ARM a licensing fee. The Linux Foundation Europe says the members of the project will contribute both engineering workforce and financial aid to help address software needs that the project’s steering committee has planned.
Samsung, a company that designs chips (System LSI) and manufactures them (Samsung Foundry), is in the right place as RISE can help increase the adoption of RISC-V. The South Korean firm can then design chips based on the open-source instruction set. As we reported earlier, ARM has changed its terms significantly and can affect Exynos chips in the future.
