Tech war: China bets on open-source RISC-V for chip design to minimise potential damage from ‘being cut off’ by US sanctions
- RISC-V International publishes open standard ISA based on US-origin reduced instruction set computer (RISC) principles
- Experts say China’s adoption of open-source RISC-V architecture would not shield them from all US sanction risks, as US dominates in EDA tools
A growing number of Chinese chip design firms have adopted open-source RISC-V in their chip designs as an alternative to Intel’s proprietary X86 and Arm’s architecture, in a bid to minimise potential damage from US sanctions and to save on licensing fees.
Of the 20 “premier members” of RISC-V International, the non-profit organisation which changed its base to Switzerland in 2020 to avoid certain US trade regulations, half are Chinese, including Huawei Technologies Co – currently subject to US trade sanctions - as well as Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post.
A premier member has a seat on the organisation’s board and the technology committee, which helps to determine the standard’s future.
“[This] gives Chinese companies access to a global open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) ecosystem,” said Stewart Randall, head of electronics and embedded software at consultancy Intralink. “So Chinese companies can have access to, and create, their own cores or chips based on it.”
However, some industry experts said China’s adoption of open-source RISC-V architecture would not shield them from all US sanction risks, as America still holds the trump card when it comes to electronic design automation (EDA) tools, the key software needed for chip design, as well as chip manufacturing technologies.
Last month Bloomberg reported that US EDA supplier Synopsys was being investigated by the US Department of Commerce for allegedly supplying its chip design software to Huawei’s in-house chip design firm HiSilicon.