Re:Debian port for RISC-V 64-bit
by tyingq on Sunday April 23, 2017 @09:27AM
(#14178065)
The one that's most interesting to me is lowRISC. Mostly because it has something tangible to offer as a differentiator other than the "open ISA". Specifically, the "minion cores"[1] Their initial use case for them sounds a lot like the PRUs on a BeagleBone board.
Basically, it enables you to do hard real-time tasks like signal generation (controlling led matrices, audio) or fast data/signal acquisition, but without running some specialty os. The minion cores can read+write memory from the main cpu that's running normal Linux.
That feature also gives them a little breathing room on initial pricing. Their SoC board would be viewed as competition for a $70 board, instead of competition for a cheaper Raspberry PI or similar. So, initial pricing wouldn't necessarily hurt the popularity.
They seem to plan to have something out either this year, or sometime next year: "We are expecting to crowdfund an initial instantiation of the lowRISC platform during the course of 2017."
Basically, it enables you to do hard real-time tasks like signal generation (controlling led matrices, audio) or fast data/signal acquisition, but without running some specialty os. The minion cores can read+write memory from the main cpu that's running normal Linux.
That feature also gives them a little breathing room on initial pricing. Their SoC board would be viewed as competition for a $70 board, instead of competition for a cheaper Raspberry PI or similar. So, initial pricing wouldn't necessarily hurt the popularity.
They seem to plan to have something out either this year, or sometime next year: "We are expecting to crowdfund an initial instantiation of the lowRISC platform during the course of 2017."
[1]http://www.lowrisc.org/downloads/lowRISC-memo-2014-001.pdf