RISC-V inferior to ARMv8

By: Ronald Maas (ronaldjmaas.delete@this.gmail.com), December 21, 2018 10:35 am
Room: Moderated Discussions
Wilco (Wilco.dijkstra.delete@this.ntlworld.com) on December 21, 2018 3:43 am wrote:
> Travis Downs (travis.downs.delete@this.gmail.com) on December 20, 2018 2:18 pm wrote:
> > I largely agree on ISA design - it's too simple for its own good when it
> > comes to high-perf designs, but I think it all mostly doesn't matter.
> >
> > If RISC-V succeeds, it will be because it is free, both in $ terms
> > and in the ability to use the designs and ISA royalty free.
> >
> > Price matters most at the ultra low-end of the market where speeds are usually measured in the single
> > to triple-digit MHz. The mentioned differences might make 10% to 50% difference in performance,
> > but these low-end designs already range by a factor of 10x in performance fairly easily.
> >
> > At this very low end the simplicity probably helps overall, even if it hurts performance.
>
> And that would cost you in power too. However the real cost at the low end is code density
> given code runs from on-chip flash and SRAM. Historically MIPS was the worst ISA for codesize
> - MIPS16 compressed codesize was larger than 32-bit ARM! RISC-V is even more basic and reduces
> all immediate offsets, thus requiring far more instructions for the same task.
>
> Wilco

Code density of RISC-V is actually pretty good. RISC-V 32-bit compressed requires slightly more bytes compared to ARM Thumb2. But as Thumb2 instruction encoding is highly irregular, it requires significant more transistors to decode. And more active transistors requires more power.

This is applicable for low end designs only. Once you go up the performance scale, the difference of having auto-increment addressing or not will drop below the noise floor.

I agree with Travis that other factors are far more important in the overall decision process. E.g. cost, flexibility to implement custom instructions, availability of tools and support, maturity of the ISA and the organization behind it, etc.

Ronald
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TopicPosted ByDate
RISC-V Summit ProceedingsGabriele Svelto2018/12/19 09:36 AM
  RISC-V gut feelingsKonrad Schwarz2018/12/20 05:30 AM
    RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Heikki Kultala2018/12/20 08:36 AM
      RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Wilco2018/12/20 02:31 PM
        RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Travis Downs2018/12/20 03:18 PM
          RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Wilco2018/12/21 04:43 AM
            RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Ronald Maas2018/12/21 10:35 AM
          RISC-V inferior to ARMv8juanrga2018/12/21 11:28 AM
            RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Maynard Handley2018/12/21 03:39 PM
              RISC-V inferior to ARMv8anon2018/12/21 04:38 PM
                RISC-V inferior to ARMv8juanrga2018/12/23 05:39 AM
                  With similar logic nor do frequency (NT)Megol2018/12/23 10:45 AM
              RISC-V inferior to ARMv8juanrga2018/12/23 05:44 AM
                RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Wilco2018/12/23 07:21 AM
      RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Michael S2018/12/20 04:24 PM
        RISC-V inferior to ARMv8anon2018/12/20 05:22 PM
          RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Travis Downs2018/12/21 07:16 PM
            RISC-V inferior to ARMv8anon2018/12/22 04:53 AM
              Execution runtimes and SpectreFoo_2018/12/22 07:02 AM
        RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Adrian2018/12/20 09:51 PM
          RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Doug S2018/12/21 12:10 AM
            RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Adrian2018/12/21 12:38 AM
              RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Michael S2018/12/21 03:31 AM
                RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Adrian2018/12/21 04:23 AM
            RISC-V inferior to ARMv8random person2018/12/21 03:04 AM
              RISC-V inferior to ARMv8dmcq2018/12/21 05:27 AM
              RISC-V inferior to ARMv8juanrga2018/12/21 11:36 AM
              RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Doug S2018/12/21 01:02 PM
            RISC-V inferior to ARMv8juanrga2018/12/21 11:23 AM
          RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Adrian2018/12/21 12:21 AM
          RISC-V inferior to ARMv8anon2018/12/21 02:48 AM
            RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Adrian2018/12/21 04:44 AM
              RISC-V inferior to ARMv8anon2018/12/21 06:24 AM
            RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Adrian2018/12/21 05:09 AM
              RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Wilco2018/12/21 05:28 AM
          RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Michael S2018/12/21 03:27 AM
            RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Gabriele Svelto2018/12/21 02:09 PM
              RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Maynard Handley2018/12/21 03:58 PM
              RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Wilco2018/12/21 04:43 PM
                RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Travis Downs2018/12/21 06:45 PM
                  RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Wilco2018/12/22 05:37 AM
                    RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Travis Downs2018/12/22 07:54 AM
                      RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Wilco2018/12/22 11:32 AM
                Cracking is not freeGabriele Svelto2018/12/22 03:09 AM
                  Cracking is not freeWilco2018/12/22 05:32 AM
                    Cracking is not freeTravis Downs2018/12/22 08:07 AM
                      Cracking is not freeWilco2018/12/22 08:38 AM
                        Cracking is not freeTravis Downs2018/12/22 08:47 AM
                          Cracking is not freeWilco2018/12/22 11:24 AM
                            Cracking is not freeTravis Downs2018/12/25 04:41 PM
                              Cracking is not freeanon.12018/12/25 09:14 PM
                        multi-instruction decode and renamePaul A. Clayton2018/12/22 07:45 PM
                    Cracking is not freeGabriele Svelto2018/12/22 01:30 PM
                      Cracking is not freeWilco2018/12/23 07:48 AM
                      Cracking is not freeMichael S2018/12/23 09:09 AM
                        Cracking is not freeGabriele Svelto2018/12/26 03:53 PM
          RISC-V inferior to ARMv8rwessel2018/12/21 02:13 PM
          RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Seni2018/12/21 03:33 PM
            RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Wilco2018/12/21 04:33 PM
              RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Travis Downs2018/12/21 06:49 PM
                RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Wilco2018/12/22 05:58 AM
                  RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Travis Downs2018/12/22 08:03 AM
                    RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Wilco2018/12/22 08:22 AM
                      RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Travis Downs2018/12/22 08:40 AM
        RISC-V inferior to ARMv8dmcq2018/12/21 04:57 AM
      RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Konrad Schwarz2018/12/21 03:25 AM
      RISC-V inferior to ARMv8j2018/12/21 11:46 AM
        RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Travis Downs2018/12/21 07:08 PM
          RISC-V inferior to ARMv8dmcq2018/12/22 08:45 AM
            RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Travis Downs2018/12/22 08:50 AM
              RISC-V inferior to ARMv8Michael S2018/12/22 09:15 AM
                RISC-V inferior to ARMv8dmcq2018/12/22 11:41 AM
        RISC-V inferior to ARMv8AnonQ2018/12/22 09:13 AM
    RISC-V gut feelingsdmcq2018/12/20 08:41 AM
      RISC-V initial takeKonrad Schwarz2018/12/21 03:17 AM
        RISC-V initial takedmcq2018/12/21 04:23 AM
      RISC-V gut feelingsMontaray Jack2018/12/22 03:56 PM
        RISC-V gut feelingsdmcq2018/12/23 05:38 AM
  RISC-V Summit Proceedingsjuanrga2018/12/21 11:47 AM
    RISC-V Summit Proceedingsdmcq2018/12/22 07:21 AM
      RISC-V Summit ProceedingsMontaray Jack2018/12/22 03:03 PM
        RISC-V Summit Proceedingsdmcq2018/12/23 05:39 AM
  RISC-V Summit Proceedingsanon22018/12/21 11:57 AM
    RISC-V Summit ProceedingsMichael S2018/12/22 09:36 AM
      RISC-V Summit ProceedingsAnon2018/12/22 06:51 PM
      Not Stanford MIPS but commercial MIPSPaul A. Clayton2018/12/23 04:05 AM
        Not Stanford MIPS but commercial MIPSMichael S2018/12/23 04:49 AM
        Not Stanford MIPS but commercial MIPSdmcq2018/12/23 05:52 AM
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