impressive performance but priced themselves
out of the maker market, while devices based
on Allwinner’s D1 chip struggled with poor
performance. Gadgets like Microchip’s PolarFire
SoC Icicle Kit offer RISC-V cores, too, but they
play second fiddle to the board’s FPGA resources.
But now, the StarFive VisionFive — a dual-core
64-bit single-board computer running Linux —
offers a reasonably affordable entry point, with its
follow-up, the VisionFive 2, boosting performance
and slashing costs.
PINE64, best known for its Pinebook and
Pinephone ranges, is also getting in on the act:
After putting a RISC-V microcontroller inside the
Pinecil and Pinecil 2 soldering irons, the company
is now preparing to launch the Star64, an open-
source single-board computer built atop the
same StarFive JH7110 chip as the VisionFive 2.
BUILDING YOUR OWN CHIPS
For many makers, architecture will always take a
back seat to features when it comes to choosing a
chip. But RISC-V, and other free and open-source
silicon efforts, provide a whole new playing field
for the curious maker: The ability to get down
and dirty with the architecture itself in a way
that previously would have required a decade of
education and a job application to Intel, AMD,
Arm, or the like.
“RISC-V essentially gives you the freedom to
implement and customize the processor core
to your needs,” explains Stefan Wallentowitz,
who sits on the board of RISC-V International
to represent community members. “While the
average maker will probably not build chips at a
commercial scale, there are efforts like the Open
Multi-Project Wafer for fully open-source chips,”
he adds, referring to a Google-funded project
that lets designers of open-source silicon have
their chips built at SkyWater or GlobalFoundries
fabrication facilities at absolutely zero cost —
something never before possible. “Free and
open-source silicon makes learning digital design
and computer architecture accessible and fun.”
Even Intel, which has a vested interest in
pushing people toward its own proprietary x86
architecture, would seem to agree: In August
the company launched Pathfinder for RISC-V, a
development environment for RISC-V systems-
on-chips, with a free-of-charge Starter Edition
which Intel has specifically pushed to the
hobbyist, academic, and research communities.
“Intel Pathfinder for RISC-V represents our
ongoing commitment to accelerate the adoption
of RISC-V,” claimed Intel’s general manager for
RISC-V ventures Vikay Krishnan at the launch,
“and catalyze the ecosystem around an open
source and standards-based vision.”
G
Learn more about RISC-V at riscv.org
FRESH LINUX SBCS: StarFive’s quad-core, 1.5GHz
RISC-V JH7110 processor is at the heart of their new
VisionFive 2 single-board computer (top) and also
PINE64’s new Star64 (bottom) — both with the familiar
Raspberry Pi-format GPIO header. Debian and Fedora
Linux distros are already being ported to the JH7110.
45
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SiFive, Espressif Systems, StarFive, PINE64
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