Western Digital Embraces Open Standards with RISC-V Processor Development

cageymaru

cageymaru

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At the RISC-V Summit, Western Digital's Chief Technology Officer Martin Fink unveiled plans to release a new open source RISC-V core, an open standard initiative for cache coherent memory over a network, and an open source RISC-V instruction set simulator. The RISC-V SweRV Core is a 2-way superscalar design with a 32-bit, 9 stage pipeline core that allows for several instructions to be loaded at once and executed simultaneously. The 1.8GHz power efficient design uses 28mm CMOS process technology and will be featured in flash controllers and SSDs. These innovations are expected to accelerate development of new open, purpose-built compute architectures for Big Data and Fast Data environments.

"As Big Data and Fast Data continues to proliferate, purpose-built technologies are essential for unlocking the true value of data across today's wide-ranging data-centric applications," said Fink. "Our SweRV Core and the new cache coherency fabric initiative demonstrate the significant possibilities that can be realized by bringing data closer to processing power. These planned contributions to the open-source community and continued commitment of the RISC-V initiative offer exciting potential to accelerate collaborative innovation and data-driven discoveries."
 
So it's intended to go into self-driving cars to help them avoid collisions?
 
More like Western Digital embraces royalty free RISC-V, cause that's the reason they use it. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
 
"As Big Data and Fast Data continues to proliferate, purpose-built technologies are essential for unlocking the true value of data across today's wide-ranging data-centric applications,"

I've had enough with this proliferating data rush - always in a hurry. That's why today, my Xeon 5675s and I are starting...

The Slow Data Movement

Inspired by the slow food movement, this cloudy project is focused on enjoying the clock cycles with natural laziness and gourmet code ingredients. Your infographics will be ready when I say they're ready.
 
A3fM.gif
 
9 stage pipelines? NOP NOP NOP NOP NOP NOP NOP....that executes fast ;).

While open standards can backfire for a company, in my totally unscientific gut feeling it seems the benefits usually outweigh the disadvantages.
 
WhoMe said:
While open standards can backfire for a company, in my totally unscientific gut feeling it seems the benefits usually outweigh the disadvantages.
Click to expand...

This is purpose-built, so it will probably succeed relative to WD's investment.

The news is that RISC-V is getting a high-profile commercial implementation, and that will hopefully prove the efficacy of the architecture.
 
Open source is good overall, but it has its down sides, and that is with firmware. Any jack hacker can now screw with your drive firmware. Good luck with that.
 
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