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RISC-V Hits 25% Market Penetration as Qualcomm and Meta Lead the Shift to Open-Source Silicon

17h 1m ago by lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/technocrit in technology from markets.financialcontent.com

The global semiconductor landscape has reached a historic inflection point as the open-source RISC-V architecture officially secured 25% market penetration this month, signaling the end of the long-standing architectural monopoly held by proprietary giants. This milestone, verified by industry analysts in late December 2025, marks a seismic shift in how the world’s most advanced hardware is designed, licensed, and deployed. Driven by a collective industry push for "architectural sovereignty," RISC-V has evolved from an academic experiment into the cornerstone of the next generation of computing.

25% of what?

1/4 of 100% of what?

I've seen zero RISC devices in the wild, and the phrasing here wants me to think I should have by now.

I assume microcontrollers. Most of those are invisible to consumers.

Microcontroller market is dominated by ARM. There's no way RISC-V has 25 % of that market yet.

Saying this as someone who has been eagerly awaiting RISC-V microcontrollers for years.

Now I've read the article it's unnamed industry analysts and it's written by an AI. For all I know the AI has hallucinated the number.

This is about datacenters and HPC, hence the reference to Meta.

Qualcomm and Meta? Two technology companies that I want zero products from.

One is a patent troll and the other is an inept corporation that is directly instrumental is the destruction of society.

Mostly Qualcomm's cpus for automotive and enterprise servers and Meta's (Facebook) custom AI chips.

For consumer products is still an hobbist with Linux exclusive.

SteamDeck 2 will still have an ARM.

SteamDeck 2 will still have an ARM.

Of what little I know, ARM core designs should be relatively easy to repurpose for RISC-V ISA, once the set of extensions normally used becomes certain. Most of the work being in decoders.

So it just comes down to a still new and not entirely stable ISA. Like with network protocols.

I think it's interesting that the phrase "ARM-free" roadmap is being used. I had no idea there had been so much market penetration of RISC-V already

For real? 25%? That's impressive!

I mean, don't Nvidia GPUs have a RISC-V system processor?

What incentives are there for companies like meta here?
Is it going to be proprietary drivers for open chip designs?

I feel like its a similar decision to why companies adopted linux over enterprise unix's. Its kind of interesting how decentralized/open solutions are mostly used by companies versus the public.

There are plenty nowadays from what I remember.

  1. They save on the ARM licensing fees. I'm not sure about the details, but I believe it's both a flat fee and cost per chip produced
  2. They can freely add proprietary vendor extensions, which I'm not sure ARM allows
  3. They're less restricted in general chip design (I think ARM has restricted options in the last years, Apple has some special privileges as a founding member)

TIL! Had no idea there was existing alternatives to architecture status quo! Very cool work here

I never got the hype from Open source supporters about RISC-V. Its a permissive license so any consumer use will end up with companies EEE into there own product line (Could you then patent that architecture?). Weirdly I feel like the ARM model where a central company licenses the chipset out to many companies is kind of better as atleast you get competition between chip designers. Main benefit here is companies who don't have to pay licenses for the architecture

"Qualcomm’s (NASDAQ: QCOM) $2.4 billion acquisition of Ventana Micro Systems and Meta Platforms, Inc.’s (NASDAQ: META) strategic takeover of Rivos have sent "

Mostly US state propaganda.. The big US tech *unts just bought up smaller corps, and have now been put on a pedestal as the 'world leaders' of that segment. Well, that's one way to do it I guess..

Some none-verified AI-slop for all: Key Findings from Chinese Sources

  1. China's Shipment Dominance

    According to Chinese industry reports and the RISC-V International Foundation, China contributed over 50% of global RISC-V chip shipments in 2024. This is based on data from the 5th RISC-V China Summit, where officials stated that global shipments exceeded 100 billion chips, with China accounting for more than half.

  2. Scale of Chinese RISC-V Ecosystem

    Over 60 Chinese companies are actively involved in RISC-V, spanning IP design, SoC development, manufacturing, and ecosystem support. This contrasts sharply with the original list of 5 companies, which included only one Chinese firm (StarFive). Key Chinese players beyond StarFive include: 芯原 (VeriSilicon) – Leading IP provider and chair of China RISC-V Industry Alliance (CRVIC). 中兴微电子 (ZTE Microelectronics) – Major contributor to RISC-V-based communications chips. 阿里巴巴 (Alibaba) – Through its T-Head division, developing RISC-V processors for cloud and edge computing. 华为海思 (HiSilicon) – Investing in RISC-V for future chip designs.

  3. Market Momentum and Investment

    Government Support: China has prioritized RISC-V as part of its semiconductor self-sufficiency strategy, with significant state funding and policy incentives. Research Output: Chinese academia and companies are prolific in RISC-V research papers and patent filings, accelerating innovation. Ecosystem Growth: The China RISC-V Industry Alliance (CRVIC) has over 190 member units as of 2024, fostering collaboration and standardization.