"If we want flexibility in one level, we have to standardize the level below" Wow, never thought about it this way, great observation.

I love standards, because there are so many to choose from.

Boss: Where did you get your electronics degree? Me: I got my electronics education from Adreas Spiess's UKposts channel

Yet another great and in depth video. Thank you Andreas!

Thanks Andreas, mind blown, I feel I can hold my own in a conversation with colleagues at work now 😀👍

Great video! Thank you for starting from first principles and including the business interest side of things. I started my career in semiconductors (pre-silicon verification, architecture, and design). I really enjoy the way you explained and simplified the overall market and motivations. I will gladly point to your videos in the future when friends ask to understand the concepts you presented.

The guy with the Swiss accent has a particularly sarcastic & interesting dry humour! Thank you for your Clear Concise lesson.

Happy Birthday! Lots of health and a hundreds years of life! We wish you that your films have the greatest possible reach :) And of course thank you for your creativity! You really help us :)

Hope RISC-V gets widely adopted. Great video!

Great video. Btw, happy birthday Andreas!

Hello again from Tokyo Andreas! I felt the same way so we became RISC-V members.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I knew most of it but you did an excellent job telling the story. Well done.

12:44 I always thought ARM was build out from Acorn ( producers of the BBC Micro and Acorn Archimedes) and that Apple got interested in RISC much later.

For me the RISC-V based ESP32-C3 is interesting, because for RISC-V there's already an official LLVM backend present, which allows coding in alternate languages like Rust. That's not currently possible on Xtensa, and they seem to have little interest to complete one. (I know there's an official repository, but it moves really slowly).

I graduated math/computer science at UCLA in 1981. At that time there actually *were* multiple architectures and diverse ecosystems. The curriculum *never* discussed economics or how engineers fit into ecosystems. This huge blind-spot helped monopolies like ibm/intel/microsoft crush creativity. Thank you for your always excellent content.

Quite a comprehensive and detailed overview. The future looks very interesting with this kind of development. Looking forward to see the next experiments.

Nvidia’s acquisition of ARM could drive other licensees away, perhaps towards RISC-V. This is because ARM doesn’t allow licensees to make nonstandard changes to the architecture, while it appears Nvidia is looking to do just that. Being the owner of ARM, it will be the only vendor able to do that, which would give it an unfair competitive advantage. That will antagonize the other vendors, and encourage them to look for alternatives.

What a great summary. I think this should be compulsory viewing for engineers at university as not only does give a great statement on RISK 5 but a history lesson as well. A Brilliant episode. Thank you. Simon

This was incredibly informative! Thank you for all the details and relivent background.

Thank you so much for keeping us updated on the latest developments in the maker/microcontroller world!

Super interesting video, thanks for the clear explanations!

Just wanted to say thanks for doing what you're doing, Andreas. You're awesome.

I really appreciate the amount of research and presentation value in this video. Your knowledge and facility to convey complex topics is sublime.

One of the best and most practical summaries/overviews I've seen. Good job!

The best analogies I ever heard! Great job! Love your work :)

Another great video, thank you. Happy birthday from South Africa

in all honesty, This is one of the best descriptions in the amount of time you spent from the A to Z you covered!!! great distillation.

Interesting and informative - have been in the IT industry (mostly Linux-related stuff) for longer than I want to admit, still learned several new things from this video. Your presentation of so much history/material is organized, coherent, and easy to follow. Well done!

I think it's worth noting that pretty much no semiconductor manufacturer uses a single ISA across their whole product line. The Maker community tends to have a somewhat narrow view of the world of CPUs and MCUs based on what's in PCs, powerful consumer gadgets like phones, and things that have been associated with some Open Source projects before. This is for pretty good reasons; you tend to have to pay a lot of money for development tools outside this little slice of the processor world, and they're marketed to specific kinds of companies. But they make up really significant parts of the whole semiconductor ecosystem, so you have to be careful about assuming the importance of one ISA family like ARM even if it's completely dominating the Maker-visible parts of the semiconductor world right now. RISC-V definitely has the potential to eat into the share of the market that ARM currently dominates, but as you noted, the ISA itself is only a very tiny part of the picture. ARM provides not just an ISA, but several reference design implementations of it, a number of bus architecture designs to connect various kinds of peripherals, a line of GPU designs, etc. This stuff is very mature and very well supported with 3rd party hardware IP and software. It's going to continue to dominate in parts that are meant for end-user programming for a while! RISC-V is going to first take over where companies need CPU cores to run the internals of some in-house hardware design. You can see this from the interest shown by Seagate, Western Digital, Nvidia, etc. It's going to run inside the *peripherals* of computers first, where users mostly won't even be aware that there's a CPU involved at all. I think it might also stand a chance of being relevant to "hyperscaler" data center hardware, where PC-born bus architecture standards are in place already and there's a ton of cash to burn on long-term projects that'll result in cutting out ARM license costs in the long run, and the software stacks are internally-maintained by armies of programmers. I can also see Apple looking at RISC-V for future gadgets; cutting ARM license fees out of products where possible seems like a very Apple thing to do. Espressif choosing RISC-V for its ESP8266-replacement follows along these same lines; if you remember when the ESP8266 first hit the Maker scene, it wasn't really meant to be user-programmable; it was just a super-cheap WiFi chip you could hook up to an Ardunio via serial and control via AT commands. A lot of radio chips are designed like this; they take care of some layers of the radio protocol on their own, and you communicate with them over some serial bus from a more powerful MCU. Their choice of a weird Tensilica CPU architecture doesn't really hurt anything if they're the only ones coding for it, and switching to RISC-V makes it even more accessible now that Makers have exposed the usefulness of the chips when loaded with custom firmware. Don't think for a minute that STMicroelectronics is wedded to ARM, or that they won't embrace RISC-V if they see a benefit to it. They embraced some odd architectures in the past, and they still have a sizable line of 8-bit STM-8 and automotive Power MCUs. There may not end up being a reason, but I wouldn't be surprised either way.

I love your channel... I have learned much from you already.. thanks brother.

Wow, this is an awesome video. It’s packed full of insight, including some thoughtful ones concerning industry and company strategy. The video is only 25 minutes long, but I feel us viewers are benefitting from years of experience and knowledge. I just wonder how many hours (even years) you spent in the making of this video. Thank you for sharing. What a gift to the community. Truly Open Source!

Great video, very informative and insightful. Thanks!

Thanks for the in-depth video! I think that some maker companies like sipeed and seeed are doing a great job in pushing riscv for the maker market

Never enough open source software let alone hardware. COOL.

Extremely wonderfully explained Just the correct level of simplification!

Great video as always 👍 Thanks for sharing your knowledge to all of us 👍😊

Happy birthday from Ireland (where we drive on the correct side of the road ;-)).

Very nice quote: Standardization on lower level, flexibility on higher level. Hats off sir

Excellent presentation and very informative. Thank you.

Excellent review of the state of the question. You show the big picture in this video. Congrats and thanks Mr. Swiss Guy!

That was amazing coverage! You're always awesome Mr. Spiess! I have lots to consider now. My stomach turned when I heard Nvidia bought ARM. I didn't see how that was good for anyone except Nvidia, if it's even good for them in the long-run to survive the blowback. Many IT I know are buying up AMD because they perceive Nvidia to start bullying more, and they wish to stay flexible.

As a teen, many years ago, I along with two other friends were avid photography fans. We each bought SLR cameras ... but different brands. I had a Pentax, one friend had a Nikon, and the other a Canon. We often spent hours upon hours, as young people do, debating the merits of one system vs the other. But in truth, functionally these cameras were virtually identical. Except of course, they were completely incompatible with each other. Nikon lenses, filters etc. fit only Nikon cameras etc. There were other camera companies as well, which were similarly incompatible. They all deliberately avoided any standard ... presumably to force customers to buy only their products. Then Tamron came along, introducing the t-mount and a whole series of 'really great' lenses, which could be universally fit on any of these cameras, simply by switching inexpensive t-mounts. Tamron came into existence and thrived, by exploiting the lack of standardization in the camera industry. ... and so it continues.

Actually the title was a bit misleading, I thought I would not spare that much time to watch that content, and shelved it. Got a bit of time and get acquainted with very thoughtful and well researched review covering very many aspects of technology, business and history of electronic developments. Excellent video Andreas, a real gem.

Andreas, I think you are spot on. I do think that you missed the part of history where people discovered that you could do general purpose computing on small microprocessors. Many of the hobby computer people used Motorola chips at that point (and some Texas Instruments). The primary ecosystem was CP/M. The combination of IBM getting into the business of personal computing and Apple's meteoric growth created a business vector that essentially killed all the CP/M companies. Indirectly you said "Business forces standardization, Engineers abhor it." I started my computer career in the early '70s and can only say that it is the natural ying/yang of people who create vs people who control. Thanks for the terrific video on RISC-V. Very well done.

A very concise and interesting analysis. Thank you. I suspect greed will continue to distort the utopian solution?

I definitely desire to develope and encourage others to create exclusive alt competing wireless Internet and peer to peer mesh networks.

Excellent video to recall history of chips technology, very good job, well done! Thanks a lot Andrea.

Never watched such a dry thematic with so much joy. Great explanation, nice voice, good presentation. Keep up the good work.

An important issue for RISC-V is the fact, that chinese companies have to get independant from American-owned IP. And this is an issue for European companies and countries as well, as it might become a topic in trade wars and a subject of manipulation of NSA and friends. Thus it is quite a good idea to become somewhat independant from American-owned IP at least in critical infrastructures.

Grüzi Andreas ! I'm watching your videos in an intermittent kind for some time now and must admit that it always had been fun to listen to your staements. I learnt a lot. But this video is prepared excellently - even 2 years after it was released ! Great job ! Keep on doing like this !

Brings me back. I worked on Unix compilers from 88 to 95. I worked on every RISC chip mentioned, plus Intel and Motorola CISC. You covered it very well.

Just want to tell you that I quite appreciate your detailed reviews of these new devices. They simplify the job of selecting appropriate processors and sensors.

Many many happy returns of the day Andreas... Keep inspiring us with many more such videos...

even with the disclaimer at the start i found this explainer good and helpful -- thank you.

As always useful AND interesting, Andreas! Thanks a bunch for this comprehensive overview!

This was far more interesting and useful than I could expect. Thank you so much!

I just discovered your channel and I cannot stop watching your videos! Excellent!

Very good analysis of what is going on behind the curtains, makers are always so deep involved in their projects that they so not know what is coming from where. It is very difficult to find all these information in one place like your video and surely this will help makers to make decisions if/when they want to go for business. thanks for the deliting "nerd" videos I watch every sunday morning.!

Awesome! So much knowledge so nicely provided. Thanks!

Andreas, this video was more fun than 3 movies back to back! Congrats 🎉

truly fascinating video, I came looking for a single piece of information and left with a fresh new perspective on the world -- very nice

Very, VERY well done ! A top illustration of "Gesunder Menschenverstand" and how simple the world can become when you have learned how to use common sence.

I loved that chart (3:36) of all the Arm ISA levels, that's going in the collection. Thanks! Wow this was great video.

Andreas, this 'diluted' video was absolutely fantastic. Easily digestible. Thank you sharing this.

what a precise :) and clear explanation, not fluff straight to the point, echte Schweizer

insightful observation! thanks for the video

I learned a lot. Thank you very much for sharing!

Thanks for the great lecture. I feel like I just got an introductory lesson for a computer engineering degree for free. Very interesting and informative. And apparently it is your birthday. Congratulations!

Loved your infotertenmaint.... Also loved your way of simplifying it

Thanks for the high level view on standardization

Excellent! I really appreciate the historical background (even if very subjective and abbreviated) and the effort you put into explaining the economic context.

I really love this video. Has explained in a systematic manner with basics. Edit: Can't imagine the amount of research needed for presenting this complex of a topic so appetizing.

A difficult subject to cover. Very well explained. Thanks!

Thank you Andreas; excellent information and extremely clear.

Very interesting and instructive! Thank you Andreas!

great video. thanks for the thorough explanation!

Excellent video. It could be a graduation class!! Congratulation on the organization of the content and brilliant clear definition and explanation of such important concepts!!

Its really very useful information. I always watch your video and every information in your video is useful for me. Thank You

Very good and deep explanation. Thank you...

Andreas: Excellent. Answered all my most pressing questions. Well done as usual.

Great content, thanks for explaining!

Thank you Professor! Very enlightening.

No one else would have explained it better , thanks 🙏 a ton

I learned a lot today! and understand the reason of many things that I did not understand before

I appreciated the high level Arm/risc comparisons and their overall impact. Thanks.

Very interesting video, going to be interesting to see how this market changes over the next few years. To stay in business these days you have to deliver value (Yes, more than just offer), which means providing the customers with the product and service which works for them. That's a mouthful right there. Thanks for the awesome show which I look forward to on Sunday afternoons. Best regards, South Africa

Thank you. Very informative.

Thx for the very clear info!

very well explained, thank you!

Great walk through history and explaining computer architectures =) makes me a bit nostalgic =)

You save me a lot of time Andreas. I was planning on investing much time in purchasing a RISC-5 board and understanding it as best I could. I will spend my time else ware. I learned so much.

Thanks for bringing this to a broader audience and clear explanation. RISC-V hopefully will bring more flexibility to all of us. There is hope 👍

Good video and full of truth. I liked best how you concisely said that every company wants to commoditize the layer below them. And also if you follow the money you will understand the motivations. I couldn't agree more!

The little pointer hand pointing ☝️. 😃

Andreas; Great presentation. I had no idea how complex this silicon world is.

Thanks a lot, Maestro! One of the advantages of living in the south of the world, is that I can wake-up early on Sundays and have my coffee ☕️ following this fantastic channel. Today was a must! Greetings 🖖 from 🇨🇱 (by a Brazilian 🇧🇷 ;-)

Many happy returns of the day Andreas....One of my favourite youtubers...!!

What an excellent video thank you for for producing it

Impressive. Great video. Thank you.

Nicely explained, thanks!