RISC-V technology emerges as battleground in US-China tech war
RISC-V technology emerges as battleground in US-China tech war
In a new front in the U.S.-China tech war, President Joe Biden's administration is facing pressure from some lawmakers to restrict American companies from working on a freely available chip technology widely used in China - a move that could upend how the global technology industry collaborates acro...
The important thing about RISC-V is that it's a completely open CPU architecture that could be competitive with ARM. It's arguably the best chance we have at performant computing hardware that doesn't spy on us or become useless after just a few years. We need this.
Blocking its development would be a big win for certain corporations, and a loss to basically everyone else. The AutoTL;DR bot didn't capture that side of the issue, but a quote in the article does allude to it:
"It would be like banning us from working on the internet," Kang said. "It would be a huge mistake in terms of technology, leadership, innovation and companies and jobs that are being created."
59I don't understand what you mean. Why does ARM hardware become obsolete after a few years? Lacking ongoing software support and no mainline Linux?
What does that have to do with the instruction set license? If you think RISC-V implementors who actually make the damn chips won't ship locked hardware that only run signed and encrypted binary blobs, you are in for a disappointing ride.
Major adopters, like WD and Nvidia didn't pick RISC-V over arm for our freedoms. They were testing the waters to see if they could stop paying the ARM tax. All the other stuff will stay the same.
15Why does ARM hardware become obsolete after a few years? Lacking ongoing software support and no mainline Linux?
Correct. (And firmware support.)
What does that have to do with the instruction set license?
Barrier to entry (cost) and license restrictions (non-disclosure) are generally problematic for anyone wanting to ship open hardware.
If you think RISC-V implementors who actually make the damn chips won’t ship locked hardware that only run signed and encrypted binary blobs, you are in for a disappointing ride.
I don't think anyone expects existing ARM device makers to change their behavior with RISC-V. Rather, RISC-V opens the door to new players who do things differently.
33
Not only that, taking action against open source for "national security" is definitely a road we should not go on! It's not that far away from Microsoft claiming Linux is going to give China an unfair advantage.
3
Smells like lobbyists in here.
23Yep. I'm close enough to DC right now that I could call up a few colleagues and ask who's tugging on elbows and putting envelopes on tables at lunch lately.
3
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
The lawmakers expressed concerns that Beijing is exploiting a culture of open collaboration among American companies to advance its own semiconductor industry, which could erode the current U.S. lead in the chip field and help China modernize its military.
Such calls to regulate RISC-V are the latest in the U.S.-China battle over chip technology that escalated last year with sweeping export restrictions that the Biden administration has told China it will update this month.
U.S. persons should not be supporting a PRC tech transfer strategy that serves to degrade U.S. export control laws," Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement to Reuters.
McCaul said he wants action from the Bureau of Industry and Security, the part of the Commerce Department that oversees export-control regulations, and would pursue legislation if that does not materialize.
"I fear that our export-control laws are not equipped to deal with the challenge of open-source software - whether in advanced semiconductor designs like RISC-V or in the area of AI - and a dramatic paradigm shift is needed," Warner said in a statement to Reuters.
The RISC-V technology came from labs at the University of California, Berkeley, and later benefited from funding by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Saved 75% of original text.
4Any non-paywall links?
2What paywall? It opens fine for me.
I guess it's possible that uBlock Origin is hiding an overlay in my browser. This might help you:
2FYI, I think Reuters sometimes wants people go login with a free account. At least free for now...
2
FFS. I'm literally in the process of learning digital circuit design, anything towards RISC-V because I love open source and intend to contribute HDL.
I'm willing to bet that there's some ARM and/or x86 lobbyist influence here as RISC-V is a huge threat established ISAs that rely on licensing IP with burdensome restrictions, rather than innovating for their business models.
1Smells like Intel/AMD meddling.
1