Apple investigating RISC-V instruction set architecture, job listing shows
A job listing posted to Apple's website this week reveals the company is researching RISC-V instruction set architecture solutions, suggesting future in-house chip designs might implement the open-source technology.
The posting for a "RISC-V High Performance Programmer" was published to Apple's corporate jobs website on Thursday and seeks a programmer experienced with RISC-V architectures. An ideal candidate also has a working knowledge of NEON micro architecture in ARM CPU cores.
Programmers hired for the task will join Apple's Vector and Numerics Group, which is responsible for "designing, enhancing and improving various embedded subsystems running on iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS."
As noted by Tom's Hardware, which spotted the post earlier today, it appears that Apple is already deploying RISC-V, at least internally. The company is not known to have incorporated the ISA into a shipping product.
"You will work in a SW and HW cross functional team which is implementing innovative RISC-V solutions and state of the art routines," the listing reads. "This is to support the necessary computation for such things as machine learning, vision algorithms, signal and video processing."
RISC-V is a relatively new instruction set that is typically used in low-performance applications, though the architecture is rapidly expanding with input from collaborative partners.
How Apple intends to integrate RISC-V is unknown, though the company could effectively avoid licensing fees for ARM vector cores by adopting the architecture. All current Apple Silicon designs, including A- and M-Series SoCs as well as the S-Series and other system-in-package designs, utilize custom ARM cores.
RISC-V integration is unlikely to overtake ARM, at least in the near-term. Apple's investment in customized ARM-based processor technology is substantial and has produced a balanced platform that is unrivaled in its efficiency and performance.
Read on AppleInsider
The posting for a "RISC-V High Performance Programmer" was published to Apple's corporate jobs website on Thursday and seeks a programmer experienced with RISC-V architectures. An ideal candidate also has a working knowledge of NEON micro architecture in ARM CPU cores.
Programmers hired for the task will join Apple's Vector and Numerics Group, which is responsible for "designing, enhancing and improving various embedded subsystems running on iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS."
As noted by Tom's Hardware, which spotted the post earlier today, it appears that Apple is already deploying RISC-V, at least internally. The company is not known to have incorporated the ISA into a shipping product.
"You will work in a SW and HW cross functional team which is implementing innovative RISC-V solutions and state of the art routines," the listing reads. "This is to support the necessary computation for such things as machine learning, vision algorithms, signal and video processing."
RISC-V is a relatively new instruction set that is typically used in low-performance applications, though the architecture is rapidly expanding with input from collaborative partners.
How Apple intends to integrate RISC-V is unknown, though the company could effectively avoid licensing fees for ARM vector cores by adopting the architecture. All current Apple Silicon designs, including A- and M-Series SoCs as well as the S-Series and other system-in-package designs, utilize custom ARM cores.
RISC-V integration is unlikely to overtake ARM, at least in the near-term. Apple's investment in customized ARM-based processor technology is substantial and has produced a balanced platform that is unrivaled in its efficiency and performance.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
The other advantage is that it's really "modular (core is really small) and easy to customise" and create custom instructions for ASIC purposes (for example for handling high amount of IO in a GPU). Even if it's free and open source, the same problem comes around as with other ISAs, if you want something done, you need to hire people or buy the service if you can't do it yourself.
I'd see the RISC-V becoming a huge thing in accelerators and in some specific controllers (Power, USB, Modem etc.) within the next 5 years. Even if there are already some machines running Linux on RISC-V, they are low performance and have a really long uphill way to become even remotely mainstream.
I think today Apple doesn't even use Arm's reference designs for its CPU cores. Apple's CPU designs have been proprietary for many years. They're really only using the Arm ISA.
Nah, without a doubt, there is still an active contract in place between Apple and Intel since Apple is still selling Intel-powered devices. Apple likely will continue to do so for several more years, most likely keeping an Intel-powered Mac Pro available for the professional customers that rely on Intel hardware for their established workflow. Previous Apple-Intel contracts seem to indicate exclusivity for certain chips. The logical conclusion is that exclusivity is in perpetuity for the component's life cycle. We have not seen any old Apple-only Intel CPUs being widely marketed. There's little demand for an ancient CPU.
Note that Apple did not publicly object to Nvidia's acquisition. If they really didn't want the Nvidia-Arm acquisition to occur, they probably would have vocally pushed the FTC and international NGOs to block the merger.
A couple of job requisitions in a small group isn't going to halt all Arm silicon development at Apple.
A more likely scenario right now is that Apple is trying to keep options open looking toward the future. Remember that RISC-V does not currently have performance that comes close to what Apple has implemented with their recent A-series and M-series SoCs.
It will take years to be useful, if it ever is, for a low end phone, or similar device. A major reason it’s so efficient is that it only has 50 instructions.
I can see Apple being interested because it would be irresponsible to look the other way. Notice that the engineer they’re looking for Also needs experience with ARM. I suspect that Apple is looking to see if some aspects of this can be used inside their ARM based instruction set chips, but not to replace them
does it even need to be Apple custom to need the engineers. if Apple can tap new suppliers with better offers in terms of all the other controllers in the device then there is advantage to them.
-open-source Native Cloud Computing
-The Academy Software Foundation
-The open-source Data Transfer Project
-The open-Source FIDO Alliance
-open-source Matter for smarthomes
-The open-source Alliance for Open Media
Open Titan can be next.
The ARM 64 bit extensions replace the "vintage" parts that you deride. In reality, both instruction sets are useful, but not necessarily in the same chip.
I would hope that the educational institutions who developed RISC-V also teach it. Yes it does have merit, doesn't mean it has won any battle in the market yet.
Posit/unum hardware implementations are still a subject of research. It would be nice if RISC-V chose to have it, but I think some kind of IEEE 754 support would be higher priority — and RISC-V already has that support as far as I know (F, D and P extensions).
The RISC-V ISA is strongly inspired by MIPS, which certainly helps with porting operating systems and other software to it. That's your own prejudice. The ARM CPUs produced by Apple are of their own design, incomparable to other ARM CPUs in the market and at least as interesting as any new RISC-V design you could come up with. I will say RISC-V is a worthy alternative to ARM, specially if you are looking for a non-proprietary design and you can wait a few years for it to mature. But I don't see the point of Apple throwing away their developments on ARM instruction set when they have been so successful. You can call it an old jalopy after it stagnates and doesn't show improvements in processing power/efficiency, which has not happened today.