The Linux Foundation, the non-profit working to support and encourage open source technologies, has announced the CHIPS Alliance.
The early backers of the alliance include the likes of SiFive, Esperanto Technologies, Google, and WD. This group aims to fuel the open source chip innovation and back the growing popularity and support for free and open RISC-V architecture.
As expected, this alliance will follow the practices prevalent in Foundation’s other projects. It will comprise of the formation of a board, technical committee, and a community of contributors.
In the official blog post, The Linux Foundation’s Mike Dolan said that open collaboration can help the hardware innovation the same way it aids the software.
“We are eager to host the CHIPS Alliance and invite more organizations to join the initiative to help propel collaborative innovation within the CPU and SoC markets,” he added.
Take a look at the contributions from different organizations:
- Google: A instruction stream generator environment for RISC-V cores
- Western Digital: 9-stage, dual issue, 32-bit SweRV Core and SweRV Instruction set simulator
- SiFive: Contribution to the RocketChip SoC generator and the TileLink interconnect fabric
The website of CHIPS Alliance mentions that it’ll be adding projects over time. The first two initial projects to help the community get started are Google’s Universal Verification Methodology (UVM)-Based Stream Generator Environment for RISC-V Cores and WD’s SweRV Core.
You can visit their website to get more information and join their mailing list for any future updates.
