> Always wondered why RISC-V doesn't get more mainstream adoption.
For me, it's because the ecosystem has fragged even harder than Xtensa, who will sell you custom CPUs. THead made yet another vector unit that's required to approach anything near the Intel/AMD moat numbers.
SpecInt/GHz last year was around half of Intel/AMD/ARM numbers.
The imminent demise of CISC has been trumpeted from the rooftops for at least the last 30 years...
ARM isn't CISC and has, by sheer numbers, completely dominated x86 for decades now; not counting the massive number of MIPS, AVR, etc embedded chips.
Additionally, if you want to get super technical (as if there were ever a real delineation between RISC/CISC), both AMD and Intel decode x86 into internal micro-ops which are essentially RISC.
So, for all intents and purposes, CISC is dead and buried.
> Additionally, if you want to get super technical (as if there were ever a real delineation between RISC/CISC), both AMD and Intel decode x86 into internal micro-ops which are essentially RISC.
Given that most CISC chips also relied on microcoding and micro-ops, x86 having micro-ops wouldn't have made it anything like RISC as far as the original CISC/RISC debate goes.
The only reason that the "x86 is really RISC because of micro-ops" comes up is because x86 implementations are superscalar, which was supposed to be impossible with RISC chips, so people started coming up with the micro-op fudge to salvage the story that you need RISC to be an advanced modern microprocessor.
The truth is that CISC was never a meaningful category in the first place (it was only ever "not-RISC"), and RISC itself ceased to be a meaningful category around 30 years ago.
> The truth is that CISC was never a meaningful category in the first place (it was only ever "not-RISC"), and RISC itself ceased to be a meaningful category around 30 years ago.
Yeah, I think we're saying the same things. Thus the "(as if there were ever a real delineation between RISC/CISC)". It's an arbitrary delineation that means nothing today.
For me, it's because the ecosystem has fragged even harder than Xtensa, who will sell you custom CPUs. THead made yet another vector unit that's required to approach anything near the Intel/AMD moat numbers.
SpecInt/GHz last year was around half of Intel/AMD/ARM numbers.
The imminent demise of CISC has been trumpeted from the rooftops for at least the last 30 years...