Bosch, Infineon, Nordic, NXP, and Qualcomm Join Hands to Give the RISC-V Ecosystem a Big Boost

The free and open source RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) has received a major shot in the arm with the announcement of a new company formed through a partnership of Bosch, Infineon, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductors, and Qualcomm Technologies.

"We are excited to come together with other industry players to drive the expansion of the RISC-V ecosystem through development of next-generation hardware," claims Qualcomm's Ziad Asghar in support of the announcement today.

"Qualcomm Technologies has been investing in RISC-V for more than five years and we've integrated RISC-V micro-controllers into many of our commercial platforms. We believe RISC-V's open source instruction set will increase innovation and has the potential to transform the industry."

The partnership sees the five companies jointly investing in an as-yet unnamed company based in Germany and which will, the group claims, accelerate the commercialization of the instruction set architecture — which is developed in the open and made available to anyone to use free from restrictions, in stark contrast with closed-source proprietary alternatives like x86 and Arm.

Given some of the names involved, it's no huge surprise to find that the company's initial focus will be on hardware and software targeting the automotive market — though the group promises an "eventual expansion" to include the Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile.

"As vehicles become software-defined and dependability requirements increase due to electrification and connectivity, for example, as well as through trends like autonomous driving, there is a general need for standardization and ecosystem compatibility across the industry, with CPUs being a key IP," Infineon's Peter Schiefer explains of the group's initial focus.

"We are proud to support the establishment of trusted RISC-V based automotive products with this initiative," Schiefer continues. "The knowledge and expertise of leading market players will unleash the full potential of RISC-V in the automotive sector."

According to NXP's Lars Reger, the newly-formed company's initial focus will be the development of "fully certified RISC-V-based IP and architectures" and "the creation of a one-stop-shop ecosystem where customers can select turnkey assets."

The group has also placed a call for "industry associations, leaders, and governments to join forces in support of this initiative" — initially, no doubt, in the form of rubber-stamping regulatory approvals which could otherwise derail the plan.

No launch date for the new company has yet been announced.