Hardware
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RISC-V lacks software? I guess it depends what software you want. Pretty much everything on your typical Linux distro runs on it already (including the Linux kernel itself of course). GCC and Clang target RISC-V. QEMU supports it.
A lot of software even has advanced assembly optimization for RISC-V already. Fedora just added it as an official architecture. I think Chimera Linux already supports it and that distro is still in beta.
Even a few hobby projects support RISC-V, like Haiku.
I assume the article means that Windows does not support it yet. I mean, it barely supports ARM. In a few months, macOS will not even support Intel.
RISC-V chips are still slow but catching up. RISC-V is coming. Why license deigns off ARM when you can choose from 20 different RISC-V designers. And if you are going to design your own CPU, do you want ARM claiming ownership over your creations? Look at what they tried to do to Qualcomm and their X Elite business. And at the low-end, there are not only no ISA license fees but there are already Open Source hardware designs available. There will be more. So, either a design head-start or more licensing savings.
If I was starting a chip project today, I would 100% be RISC-V based.
That’s a bold statement.