Imagination Technologies is a company that’s probably best known for making PowerVR graphics processors, especially since selling off its MIPS processor division a few years ago. But now Imagination has announced plans to return to the CPU market. This time the company plans to design chips based on RISC-V architecture. RISC-V is an open instruction […]
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11 Comments on Chinese chip maker Loongson has designed its own CPU instruction set architecture (ISA)
Chinese chip maker Loongson has designed its own CPU instruction set architecture (ISA)
11 Comments on Chinese chip maker Loongson has designed its own CPU instruction set architecture (ISA)Chinese chip maker Loongson used to make processors based on MIPS architecture, but MIPS isn’t what it used to be and the company that developed the technology has even pivoted to making chips using the RISC-V instruction set. Now Loongson is trying something new: rather than adopt RISC-V, ARM, or x86 architecture, the company has […]
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MIPS Technologies pivots to designing RISC-V processors
MIPS Technologies, the company that had been synonymous with the MIPS processor architecture, is now shifting its business model. Instead of designing MIPS chips, the company will be developing processors based on RISC-V architecture. It’s been a long road for MIPS. The company was founded in 1984 and the first MIPS (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined […]
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SiFive plans to unveil the first RISC-V PC in October, along with new RISC-V chips
Now that NVIDIA has announced plans to acquire Arm holdings, it may be a good time for a reminder that ARM and x86 aren’t the only options for chip designs. RISC-V is a free and open instruction set available for anyone to use without paying a royalty fee. While RISC-V isn’t as mature as some […]
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Wave Computing launches MIPS Open, provides royalty-free access to chip design data
A few months after announcing plans to “open source its MIPS instruction set architecture,” the folks at Wave Computing are following through. Mostly. The company has launched the MIPS Open program and released the first components, offering developers royalty and license fee-free access to the latest versions of its 32-bit and 64-bit MIPS architecture. But […]
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MIPS chip architecture is going open source
Most desktop and laptop computers are powered by Intel and AMD chips based on x86 architecture, while most smartphones, many tablets, and some servers use chips based on ARM architecture. The distinctions aren’t as clear-cut as they used to be — you can find ARM chips in Windows PCs and servers, and x86 chips in routers […]