What’s at stake:
Automotive chip suppliers and carmakers are betting their future on RISC-V to unshackle themselves from Arm’s roadmap. This might work, it might not. At stake is the future of the IP house, which persists in its delusion that the momentum behind RISC-V does not matter.
To me, it seems clear that the recently announced formation of an equally-shared RISC-V joint venture in Germany – among Bosch, Infineon, NXP, Nordic and Qualcomm – will prove a significant force in the way the electronics industry does business, despite some skepticism in the industry.
Doubters call this a “more of the same” European project, especially in automotive, in which Bosch often takes charge. collaborates with others, to deveop certain technologies.
Others wonder how long it will be before the JV’s RISC-V cores can be designed into commercial products and make a difference on the market. One analyst quipped: “If I am a manager at Arm looking after the partnerships, I won’t be losing my sleep over this.”