RISC-V

Open-source software makes its source code - which can be compared to the blueprint of a house - freely available. One widely used open-source system is Linux, which forms the core of the Android cell phone operating system. Inspired by the success of open-source software, open designs for hardware have also emerged recently. Among them is the RISC-V architecture, which is gaining enormous popularity.  

RISC-V is an instruction set architecture: it defines the instructions with which a microprocessor can be programmed and how the microprocessor presents itself to the software, e.g., in terms of the registers offered and the possibilities for using them. This has the advantage that different software vendors can develop programs that run on the RISC-V architecture, and that different vendors can offer hardware implementations (processors) for this architecture. The open, standardized and patent-free architecture provides an important foundation for the development of a broad, rich ecosystem of hardware and software. RISC-V has been under development at the University of California, Berkeley, since 2010.