Make vs. Buy on RISC-V
summary
Decision checklist for RISC‑V cores: choose among ~3 dozen commercial IP vendors (SiFive claims ~350 design wins), serious open‑source projects (lowRISC, OpenHW CV32E40P -> CV32E4P V2 with DSP extensions used by Dolphin Design), or build from scratch. Commercial IP costs license fees but reduces verification and toolchain work; open source saves license cost but forces investment in verification, documentation, and adding custom CSRs/instructions. Expect heavy verification effort — verification requires reference model and functional coverage — and count toolchain and software porting into total cost.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (8)
- 0:00Introduction to RISC-V
- 1:00Imperas role and ecosystem
- 4:01Processor implementation paths
- 7:46Commercial IP vendors
- 11:03Open-source implementations
- 14:55Building custom processors
- 18:24Verification and cost estimation
- 21:27Summary and conclusion
related talks
41mRISC-V and Open Source Hardware BoF
21mHow RISC V made the Quick Jump from Academia to Industry
37mWhy go RISC-V-y?
21mA Comparative Analysis of RISC-V Architecture Based on the RISC-V SoC DV Experience
13mDesign for Differentiation: Architecture Licenses in RISC-V
15mRISC-V processor IP product line
17mDemo: RISC-V Models for Verification, Software Development and Architectural Explor...
11mDriving SoC Innovation with Synopsys RISC-V Solutions