The Genius of RISC-V Microprocessors

How the instruction set for RISC-V processors has been designed cleverly for both simplicity and high performance.

Since the RISC and CISC wars that raged in the late 1990s, people have claimed that RISC and CISC doesn’t matter anymore. Many will claim that instruction-sets are irrelevant.

But instruction-sets matter. They put limits on what kind of optimizations you can easily add to a microprocessor.

I have lately been learning more about the RISC-V instruction-set architecture (ISA) and here are some of the things which really impress me about the RISC-V ISA:

1. It is a RISC instruction set which is small and easy to learn (47 in base). Very favorable to anyone interested in learning about microprocessors. RISC-V Cheat Sheet.
2. Dominant architecture used for teaching digital design in universities: Why Universities Want RISC-V.
3. It is cleverly designed to allow CPU builders to create high performance microprocessors using a RISC-V ISA.
4. With no license fees and being designed to allow simple hardware implementations, a dedicated hobbyist could in principle make his own RISC-V CPU design in reasonable time.
5. Open Source designs readily…