Understanding RISC-V architecture: A detailed guide to the open-source ISA revolution

For decades, the landscape of general-purpose and embedded computing has been dominated by two proprietary instruction set architectures: Intel’s x86 and Arm’s RISC-based architecture. The x86 family traces its roots to the Intel 8086 microprocessor introduced in 1978 and has evolved through the 286, 386, 486 and modern 64-bit cores that power the majority of desktops, laptops, and servers sold worldwide. Arm’s architecture, born in 1985 at Acorn Computers, has become the de-facto choice for battery-powered and embedded devices, with over 230 billion Arm-based chips produced since 2003 and commanding more than 95 percent of the smartphone market.