riscv-platform-specs

No idea why they would talk about that in such a blog post, but as I understand it, the booting process will be standardized by the platform specification [0]. [0] https://github.com/riscv/riscv-platform-specs/blob/main/risc...

Device trees indeed. Note that newer SBCs have efforts implementing UEFI spec[0], and RISC-V is working on OS-A Platform spec[1], which further reduces basic peripheral and memory map differences. 0. https://github.com/riscv-non-isa/riscv-uefi/releases 1. https://github.com/riscv/riscv-platform-specs/blob/main/risc...

For the higher end "Application" cores that do e.g. run Linux, there's a platform standardization effort. Refer to OS-A platform[0]. 0. https://github.com/riscv/riscv-platform-specs/blob/main/risc...

This is why RISC-V put a lot of effort on the boot process, and put it early. Relevant specifications include but aren't limited to SBI[0], UEFI protocol[1] and the ongoing platform specification[2]. RISC-V is quite ready to take over the datacenter, workstation and laptop markets, while dodging the issues derived from bespoke everything which other architectures challenging x86 suffer from. 0. https://github.com/riscv-non-isa/riscv-sbi-doc/releases 1. https://github.com/riscv-non-isa/riscv-uefi/releases/ 2. https://github.com/riscv/riscv-platform-specs

>What does matter is standardization. For example a booting process. Truth. This is why RISC-V put a lot of effort on this, and put it early. Relevant specs include but isn't limited to SBI[0], UEFI protocol[1] and the ongoing platform specification[2]. 0. https://github.com/riscv-non-isa/riscv-sbi-doc/releases 1. https://github.com/riscv-non-isa/riscv-uefi/releases/tag/1.0... 2. https://github.com/riscv/riscv-platform-specs

Yes. ISA profiles (like RVA22) and platform profiles[0]. RISC-V is in a much better position than ARM and x86 already, because this is well underway and the boot specs have been available for years now. In ARM, there was too little, too late. Most vendors do not follow the relevant specs. As for the PC, the platform became so by accident (IBM PC clones happened) and there's of course a serious amount of historical cruft. 0. https://github.com/riscv/riscv-platform-specs/blob/main/risc...

>Essentially it is shortform for standardising a set of optional instruction sets into a bundle. This is a common misconception. RVA22 is not just a bunch of profiles, but 2022's OS-A Platform. Platforms do, among many things, require profiles, which are what you've described. In this particular case the RVA22 platform requires the RVA22 profiles. From your link, documenting profiles, there's an entire section[0] addressing the difference. The actual platform specification can be found here[1]. [0]: https://github.com/riscv/riscv-profiles/blob/main/profiles.a... [1]: https://github.com/riscv/riscv-platform-specs/blob/main/risc...

If you're building a chip for a server, workstation, laptop, smartphone, then you'll want to adhere to a platform spec profile. RVA22[0] is the first such profile, and among other important things which go a long way to ease cross-vendor software compatibility, it does require RVA22U and RVA22S, which in turn require a set of extensions. [0]: https://github.com/riscv/riscv-platform-specs/blob/main/risc...

If you're building a chip for a server, workstation, laptop, smartphone, then you'll want to adhere to a platform spec profile. RVA22[0] is the first such profile, and among other important things which go a long way to ease cross-vendor software compatibility, it does require RVA22U and RVA22S, which in turn require a set of extensions. [0]: https://github.com/riscv/riscv-platform-specs/blob/main/risc...

Well that's a very good question. At the moment the reality is something of a mess, because someone looked at Arm and though that must be a good idea. Plus the RISC-V Foundation has even less control over implementers than Arm does (which doesn't have a lot). The good news is that the foundation is defining various platform specs. For servers it'll include a standard firmware spec plus open source firmware implementation and a few other bits. Maybe working UEFI one day. (https://lists.riscv.org/g/tech-unixplatformspec https://github.com/riscv/riscv-platform-specs https://github.com/riscv-non-isa/riscv-sbi-doc)