The Linux Foundation Europe, the relatively new European arm of the Linux Foundation foundation of foundations, today announced the launch of the RISC-V Software Ecosystem (RISE) project. RISE aims to bring together a wide range of software and hardware vendors to accelerate “the availability of software for high-performance and power-efficient RISC-V cores running high-level operating systems for a variety of market segments.” The founding members include Google, Intel, MediaTek, Nvidia, Qualcomm Technologies, Red Hat and Samsung.
It’s no secret that RISC-V, the free and open standard instruction set architecture, is having a bit of a moment, as some of the largest technology vendors are looking to break away from the x86 standard and Arm’s IP to build their own, specialized processors without having to pay licensing fees to the incumbents. And while it’s worth noting that Intel is part of this new collaboration and other RISC-V initiatives, that may be more of a sign of Intel’s current predicaments and unyielding hope that it can finally build a flourishing foundry business than its genuine interest in the technology.
“Accelerating RISC-V support in the open source software ecosystem, aligned with platform standards, is critical to the growth of RISC-V adoption,” said Mark Skarpness, VP and GM of system software engineering at Intel. “Intel is pleased to join other industry leaders in the formation of RISE to further this goal.”
The Linux Foundation Europe says the project members will contribute both engineering talent and financial support to address specific software needs that the project’s steering committee plans to outline.
“The RISE Project is dedicated to enabling RISC-V in open source tools and libraries (e.g., LLVM, GCC, etc) to speed implementation and time-to-market,” said Gabriele Columbro, General Manager of Linux Foundation Europe. “RISC-V is a cornerstone of the European technology and industrial landscape so we’re honored to provide a neutral, trusted home for the RISE Project under Linux Foundation Europe.”
The Linux Foundation Europe launches RISE, the RISC-V Software Ecosystem project by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch