Android wants to support a promising open-source CPU architecture
Mobile phones, includingthe best Android phonesout there, are almost all running on Arm chip architecture—even Apple’s custom silicon is based on Arm reference designs. However, Arm has proven to be a less reliable partner in recent years, with its owner Softbank seriously considering selling it. Google is apparently seeing these risks as dire enough to invest into supporting a completely different chip technology, namely the open-source RISC-V architecture.
Sign up forfree
Forgot your password?
Create an account
*Required: 8 chars, 1 capital letter, 1 number
By continuing, you agree to thePrivacy PolicyandTerms of Use.You also agree to receive our newsletters, you can opt-out any time.
As spotted by Android Police alumnusRon Amadeo at Ars Technica, Google’s Director of Engineering Lars Berstrom joined the RISC-V Summit to announce the company’s commitment to the new architecture. He makes clear that Android will treat RISC-V as a high-priority architecture, right on par with the current standard used by almost every phone, ARMv8. Android on RISC-V is supposed to be 64-bit only, omitting the outdated 32-bit instruction set from the get-go.
Google still has a long journey ahead, but the company wants to offer early emulator support for developers to play with the architecture this year, automatically translating apps written in Java into RISC-V instructions. Since the majority of apps are written in Java (usually translated to ARMv8 code when an app is installed on your phone), this could give the company a good head-start and allow a basic set of operational apps on a RISC-V device.
During the presentation, Berstrom made clear that Google doesn’t have any product announcements to share regarding RISC-V, and that its efforts are currently focused on enabling other developers to create their own RISC-V products. However, with Arm increasingly volatile and some questionable decisions, it’s clear that Google is laying a foundation to switch to another architecture in case it is ever forced to. It will take a long time to get Android up and running on RISC-V as well as it currently does on ARMv8, but in the long run, it will make the company and the Android Open Source Project less reliant on a single architecture.
Who knows, maybe a future Google Tensor chip will be based on RISC-V, even if that’s pure speculation at this point.
Google is still searching for answers
Strong alternatives to aging competitors
What’s new? A lot
Check your order status!
Perfect for all types of devices
Expanded dark theme is here
