LLVM Founder Chris Lattner Joins SiFive To Lead Platform Engineering

[phoronix]

Phoronix: LLVM Founder Chris Lattner Joins SiFive To Lead Platform Engineering

Chris Lattner, the founder of the LLVM compiler stack and sub-projects like the Clang C/C++ compiler front-end, has joined RISC-V firm SiFive...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Chris-Lattner-Joins-SiFive

[vegabook]

Probably the death knell for Tensorflow via Swift.

[wizard69]

Probably the death knell for Tensorflow via Swift.

I’m not even sure he was a big factor there.

joining SiFive though seems like a huge leap into the unknown. There is nothing to say they will be around in 3 years. Im not seeing the expected adoption of RISC-V, at least not in volume. It would be fantastic though if the came out with a competitive SOC for desktops and laptops.

[pkese]

Im not seeing the expected adoption of RISC-V, at least not in volume. It would be fantastic though if the came out with a competitive SOC for desktops and laptops.

Depends where you look. In instead of looking at "SOC for desktops and laptops", you look at companies who build custom chips in real volumes, RISC-V is probably already the second most popular ISA right after ARM in terms of different chip implementation tapeouts.

At the same time, you'll find even ARM hard to find in any respectable volume in desktops and laptops despite their popularity.

[wizard69]

Depends where you look. In instead of looking at "SOC for desktops and laptops", you look at companies who build custom chips in real volumes, RISC-V is probably already the second most popular ISA right after ARM in terms of different chip implementation tapeouts.

At the same time, you'll find even ARM hard to find in any respectable volume in desktops and laptops despite their popularity.

In the past we had MIPS, Sparc and others; none of which are significant now. Even in embedded I’m not seeing a massive take up.

[CommunityMember]

joining SiFive though seems like a huge leap into the unknown.

Chris is one of those few extremely talented and valuable people who can afford(*) to take that leap, and should it all fall apart Apple or Google will take him back in a minute in order to maintain his desired lifestyle.

(*) I am highly confident he is going to be compensated very very well at SiFive.

[berolinux]

That's very good news -- Linux on RISC-V is currently the only platform on which clang isn't really an option yet.
The fix for that should be coming quickly now.