News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Qualcomm acquires RISC-V focused Ventana Micro Systems by fork-bomber on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @12:05PM (#46220298)
QC likely use a lot of Arm IP, Nuvia notwithstanding, and want a way out of the general Arm monopoly. Seems to be a growing trend.

A dual ISA decoder with with fuse-off options will likely have unwelcome power-perf-area and yield consequences.

Re:Qualcomm acquires RISC-V focused Ventana Micro Systems by Pet_Ant on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @12:47PM (#46220871)
Fused off silicon consumes power? I assumed it just went dark.
Re:Qualcomm acquires RISC-V focused Ventana Micro Systems by fork-bomber on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @01:09PM (#46221182)
You’re right. But consider that in order to be useful when not fused off, the design would need to have a bunch of additional logic (interconnect ports, power control machinery etc) at the periphery of the to-eventually-be-fused-off area that would likely remain even when things were fused off. That may impact power.

Apart from that there’s the other usual angles: The very fact that there’s additional logic in the compute path (eventually fused off) means additional design and verification complexity. The additional area, although dark, eats into the silicon yield at the fab.

Not saying it’s not possible.