Instruction Sets Should Be Free: The Case For RISC-V

Custom systems-on-a-chip (SoCs), where the processors and caches are a small part of the chip, are becoming ubiquitous; it is rare today to find an electronics product at any scale that does not include an on-chip processor. Thus, many more companies are designing chips that include processors than in the past. Given that the industry has been revolutionized by open standards and open source software — with networking protocols like TCP/IP and operating systems (OS) like Linux— why is one of the most important interfaces proprietary?

Instruction Sets Should Be Free: The Case For RISC-V