Using Imagination Around Arm & RISC-V

December 17, 2021

Champions of the open-standard ISA expect it to start displacing competitive offerings en masse over the next few years. While that remains to be seen, the introduction of custom RISC-V instruction extensions, the formation industry-specific working groups, and advances in tools are redefining the technology’s true winners.

In this episode of Embedded Insiders, Brandon returns from the RISC-V Summit with some fresh takes. Champions of the open-standard ISA expect it to start displacing competitive offerings en masse over the next few years. While that remains to be seen, the introduction of custom RISC-V instruction extensions, the formation industry-specific working groups, and advances in tools are redefining the technology’s true winners.

Later, Brandon and Rich interview David Harold, CMO at Imagination Technologies, who explains how private equity investment saved the GPU leader from potential disaster. After consecutive years of multiple double-digit gains on the back of their A-Series IP, the company is now looking to expand back into the CPU space with a new line of RISC-V-based processor IP. But how will the Arm/NVIDIA situation impact their plans?

Finally, Assistant Editor Taryn Engmark gives us an update on the electronic component shortage, where the news isn’t good. Research now estimates that supply levels will remain unstable through the first half of 2023, meaning that it may be time for many engineering organizations to “BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY” when it comes to part sourcing.