To answer AC's question a few moths later: "What's the big advantage with RISC over ARM or x86?"
Before discussing the advantage you need to discuss the difference. What's the difference between RISC over ARM or x86? Nothing.
a) ARM is RISC b) x86 is CISC only in the instruction set. The processors themselves have had far more in common with RISC processors since the days of the Pentium Pro.
IBM's z is arguably still a CISC architecture. Mostly it does the CISC-ISA-decoded-to-RISC-micro-ops dance, but the execution cores still contain a fairly complicated set of features, such as FPUs for both binary and decimal operands.
Really, though, the RISC-CISC dichotomy no longer makes much sense, which I take to be the force of your point. And while z is still important in business computing, and a cash cow, it's a niche architecture compared to x86 or ARM.
Freedom demands Open Hardware also (Score:0)
OpenCores.org
J-Core.org
riscv.org
gaisler.com
OpenSPARC
There is a path forward, but it will take Fab relationships and people willing to test and then buy the first practical and fully open systems...
Re: (Score:4, Informative)
Not sure about others but some are available for purchase.
"SiFive has declared that 2018 will be the year of RISC V Linux processors" [slashdot.org] - Linux Now Has its First Open Source RISC-V Processor, Slashdot.
To answer AC's question a few moths later: "What's the big advantage with RISC over ARM or x86?"
Meltdown, Spetre.
Re: (Score:2)
To answer AC's question a few moths later: "What's the big advantage with RISC over ARM or x86?"
Before discussing the advantage you need to discuss the difference. What's the difference between RISC over ARM or x86? Nothing.
a) ARM is RISC
b) x86 is CISC only in the instruction set. The processors themselves have had far more in common with RISC processors since the days of the Pentium Pro.
CISC CPUs don't really exist in modern computing.
Re:Freedom demands Open Hardware also (Score:1)
CISC CPUs don't really exist in modern computing
IBM's z is arguably still a CISC architecture. Mostly it does the CISC-ISA-decoded-to-RISC-micro-ops dance, but the execution cores still contain a fairly complicated set of features, such as FPUs for both binary and decimal operands.
Really, though, the RISC-CISC dichotomy no longer makes much sense, which I take to be the force of your point. And while z is still important in business computing, and a cash cow, it's a niche architecture compared to x86 or ARM.