Qamcom Research & Technology has joined the RISC-V Foundation with the intention of further driving the adoption of RISC-V in the areas of wireless connectivity, autonomous systems and industrial IoT. Membership in the Foundation provides both an opportunity for Qamcom to collaborate with an expert community and to take a leadership position in the adoption and implementation of the RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA).

Qamcom is a technology application expert, providing specialist consultancy services in the fields of wireless connectivity, autonomous systems and industrial IoT. Many of its projects have a high demand on security, performance, availability and cost – all areas in which deploying RISC-V can have a significant impact in keeping Qamcom at the forefront of advanced product development.

There is already an increasing demand for products and systems using RISC-V at the core in the 5G and automotive sectors, two of Qamcom’s main focus areas. Membership in the RISC-V Foundation provides both an opportunity for Qamcom to collaborate with an expert community and to take a leadership position in the adoption and implementation of the RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA).

“The RISC-V Foundation has been growing very rapidly, with more than 235 current members, bringing together many of the world’s leading technology companies,” said Calista Redmond, CEO, RISC-V Foundation. “I am delighted that Qamcom has joined the ecosystem and I look forward to engaging Qamcom in the community as we progress RISC-V innovation together.”

Open source silicon is quickly making inroads just as open source software did 20 years ago. RISC-V is at the front line of this change and is already becoming the default choice for new digital designs. Qamcom believes that this opens upnew opportunities and enables scaling that simply isn’t possible with traditional methods.

“Increasing miniaturisation of components and systems, combined with the rapid growth of edge computing capacity, is fuelling exciting and previously unimaginable developments in the areas of industrial IoT and automotive technologies,” said Nasim Farahini, CTO of Qamcom Research & Technology Stockholm. “RISC-V is a critical enabler, providing us with a firm foundation upon which we can develop innovative, customised, secure and life changing solutions.”

RISC-V is not only attractive for its exibility. RISC-V is free and open, therefore not being tied to a single vendor means that it has the potential of replacing many utility CPUs in a design, thus simultaneously reducing license costs, avoiding single-sourcing and minimising end-of-life issues.

“Using RISC-V is an excellent way to avoid vendor lock-in and single-sourcing. Having worked with open source silicon now for a decade I have seen designs based on open standards being rapidly migrated and reused in new technology over and over again, whereas license restrictions would have prevented this if a proprietary CPU had been used,” said Olof Kindgren, Senior Digital Design Engineer of Qamcom Research & Technology. “RISC-V enables unrestricted technology choice and very fast time to market, instead of spending time and money on negotiating with a proprietary CPU vendor about which technology they support.”