Apple Possibly Exploring Open-Source Alternative to Arm Architecture

[MacRumors]

Apple may be exploring the possibility of using an open-source alternative to the Arm architecture, which it's been using in its products for decades.

According to a newly posted job alert, spotted by Tom's Hardware, Apple is looking for an engineer that specializes in RISC-V, an open-source architecture instruction set that allows device makers to build their own chips without having to pay a license or royalty. Apple currently uses the Arm architecture in its products, and it pays the company a royalty fee to use its instruction set.

Apple's job posting description states that the engineer will implement "innovative RISC-V solutions and state of the art routines" to Apple's products. Specifically, Apple hopes prospective engineers will be able to work with the RISC-V instruction set, as well as have an understanding of Arm.

Tom's Hardware theorizes that if Apple were to adopt the open-source instruction set of RISC-V, it may save the company money because it wouldn't need to pay Arm a license fee for its instruction set.

Every Arm core requires Apple to pay a licensing fee to Arm, and since the number of cores for things like SSD controllers and smartwatches will only increase, so will Apple's payments to Arm. As such, replacing at least some Arm cores with RISC-V cores could save Apple millions of dollars in royalty payments every year...

The job listing is a confirmation that Apple is exploring the use of RISC-V, but whether the company decides to implement the open-source technology remains to be seen. Apple's reliance on Arm has increased in the past year as Apple is in the process of switching its Mac lineup to Arm-based processors rather than Intel.

Article Link: Apple Possibly Exploring Open-Source Alternative to Arm Architecture

 

[alchemistmuffin]

Well, this was inevitable considering how much Apple hates Nvidia (who bought out ARM) over its graphics chip debacle while back. They do not want to pay Nvidia a single cent going forward and going with open source method will likely bring more chip innovation for the company.

 

[LFC2020]

Once again, these savings won’t get passed on to us customers, prices will continue to go up. 🤦‍♂️

 

[Shalev Lazarof]

delete

 

[xnu]

It has been over a year since we switched chips, we were do for change.

 

[rukia]

No. It won't happen.

 

[JPack]

Pretty much everyone has joined the RISC-V camp after the tech/trade war began, especially China. Western companies don't want to be limited in their potential customers. Alibaba, Loongson, Red Hat, even MIPS has gone RISC-V.

Even though the NVIDIA acquisition of ARM will probably never complete, Apple is smart to begin investing in RISC-V.

 

[wilhoitm]

No. It won't happen.

If NVIDIA buys ARM it will happen! I bet it has already started!

 

[leman]

RISC-V is nowhere close to being used in high-performance personal devices. It’s a great teaching platform and it has uses in low-end devices, but that’s about it. There is a lot of work to be done before it becomes a viable alternative to ARM64. But I could see Apple using it for secure coprocessors or something like that.

Also, Apple has an unlimited architecture license agreement with ARM. If they switch architectures again, it won’t be before 10-15 years.

Well, this was inevitable considering how much Apple hates Nvidia (who bought out ARM) over its graphics chip debacle while back. They do not want to pay Nvidia a single cent going forward and going with open source method will likely bring more chip innovation for the company.

The deal is not through yet though.

 

[wilhoitm]

I bet Apple already has working prototypes!

 

[rukia]

Nvidia Arm deal won't go through. What is more likely is that they will buy Rivos.

 

[stuartfuk]

Well, this was inevitable considering how much Apple hates Nvidia (who bought out ARM) over its graphics chip debacle while back. They do not want to pay Nvidia a single cent going forward and going with open source method will likely bring more chip innovation for the company.

NVIDIA has agreed to buy ARM but the purchase is pending. ARM is still owned by Softbank of Japan. The UK regulator has sent the purchase for further review and the EU has indicated that it is likely tp oppose the deal. It seems unlikely that ARM will ever be fully owned by NVIDIA

This move by Apple to look at RISC-V is probably just ensuring it has future flexibility.

I think Apple is more likely to eventually build out it's own ISA, maybe in another 10 - 15 years when ARM v10 is released

 

[LeeW]

Well, this was inevitable considering how much Apple hates Nvidia (who bought out ARM) over its graphics chip debacle while back. They do not want to pay Nvidia a single cent going forward and going with open source method will likely bring more chip innovation for the company.

It's really much simpler than that. Apple only wants to receive money, not pay it to others where it can be avoided.

 

[JPack]

Well, this was inevitable considering how much Apple hates Nvidia (who bought out ARM) over its graphics chip debacle while back. They do not want to pay Nvidia a single cent going forward and going with open source method will likely bring more chip innovation for the company.

Arm China never gave the green light to the deal, so NVIDIA will likely never complete the deal. Ultimately, it's not about cost or royalties, but rather trade controls.

 

[wilhoitm]

RISC-V is nowhere close to being used in high-performance personal devices. It’s a great teaching platform and it has uses in low-end devices, but that’s about it. There is a lot of work to be done before it becomes a viable alternative to ARM64. But I could see Apple using it for secure coprocessors or something like that.

Also, Apple has an unlimited architecture license agreement with ARM. If they switch architectures again, it won’t be before 10-15 years.



The deal is not through yet though.

Nothing a few Billion would not fix. I can see Apple using a non open source variation of it in the AppleTV or new HomePods. It inevitably will be used in the iPhone and Mac and I bet Apple can make it even faster than the M1!

 

[leman]

Nothing a few Billion would not fix. I can see Apple using a non open source variation of it in the AppleTV or new HomePods. It inevitably will be used in the iPhone and Mac and I bet Apple can make it even faster than the M1!

So you propose that Apple invests billions to make RISC-V viable instead of keep paying millions and use an architecture that already has all the relevant bits and pieces? Where is the logic in that?

The big question we need to ask ourselves is whether RISC-V would allow Apple to build faster, more energy efficient processors. I don’t see a single technical reason why it would be the case. The advantage of RISC-V is it’s open source nature. That’s about it. The ISA itself takes the RISC ideology to the extreme which means it needs more instructions to encode the same sequence of operations in practice and has to rely on variable-length compressed instruction encoding to reduce the code size to competitive levels. With clever CPU tricks and micro-ops fusing you would basically end up with the same thing that ARM64 already offers today. I just don’t see a benefit.

 

[ian87w]

And here I'm just waiting for Apple Silicon to support ARMv9...

 

[leman]

And here I'm just waiting for Apple Silicon to support ARMv9...

Just give me SVE2 and I’ll be a happy camper

 

[Pakaku]

Alternatives, sure... but Apple plus open source? Yeah, right

 

[Shirasaki]

Once again, these savings won’t get passed on to us customers, prices will continue to go up. 🤦‍♂️

Yeah, and more than likely they will double the pricing after they switch to RISC-V.

 

[asiga]

I don't like the Intel to ARM move, but, if they choose RISC-V instead, then I applaud it.

 

[Shirasaki]

Alternatives, sure... but Apple plus open source? Yeah, right

That “open source” hardware isn’t the one you thought might be.

Part 1 of this RISC-V introduction series. He explains this whole thing much better than me.

 

[Hessel89]

Might as well have stayed with Intel then..

 

[opeter]

No. It won't happen.

Of course it will happen. If Apple sees, that they can save money, they sure will switch in a heartbeat.

And after that they can have even more control over the chip, instructions and other things. From open-source to closed-source.

 

[leman]

Alternatives, sure... but Apple plus open source? Yeah, right

What do you mean? Apple is heavily invested into open source, their platform is in fact built on open source initiatives. For example, virtually every modern browser today traces its codebase to WebKit, an open source browser engine developed by Apple. LLVM, one of the most used compiler frameworks, was built on Apples money.