Qualcomm Adopts RISC-V for Next-Gen Snapdragon Wear Platform

News
By Anton Shilov
published

RISC-V ISA gets into Qualcomm-powered wearables.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon processor logo.
(Image credit: Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Qualcomm and Google announced that they had agreed to expand their partnership to development of a Snapdragon Wear platform based on the RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) designed for next-generation Wear OS products. The announcement is a milestone as it envisions custom RISC-V-based solutions from Qualcomm that will address the whole Google Wear OS ecosystem.

The announcement by the two high-tech giants means that Qualcomm will work on RISC-V-based hardware for wearable devices, whereas Google will work on software for these applications. In general, this means that the two companies are collaboratively developing a RISC-V platform for wearable devices — for smartwatches initially, but perhaps for something more advanced going forward.

"Qualcomm Technologies have been a pillar of the Wear OS ecosystem, providing high performance, low power systems for many of our OEM partners," said Bjorn Kilburn, General manager of Wear OS at Google. "We are excited to extend our work with Qualcomm Technologies and bring a RISC-V wearable solution to market."

While system-in-packages for wearable devices may be considered simplistic, that is not at always the case. In addition to the main processor that enables computing capabilities for the whole device, they feature multiple supporting capabilities like storage and sensors. All of these are typically based on cores featuring ISA developed by Arm, including Cortex A-series cores for compute as well as Cortex M-series cores for microcontrollers. All of these cores cost money and replacing them with RISC-V ones will reduce or even eliminate licensing fees to Arm.

The announcement lacks many details. For example, we do not know whether Qualcomm's Snapdragon Wear platform featuring RISC-V ISA will replace all Arm cores or only select ones. Yet, Google's involvement in the project clearly emphasizes its scope and importance.

"We are excited to leverage RISC-V and expand our Snapdragon Wear platform as a leading silicon provider for Wear OS," said Dino Bekis, vice president and general manager, Wearables and Mixed Signal Solutions, Qualcomm. "Our Snapdragon Wear platform innovations will help the Wear OS ecosystem rapidly evolve and streamline new device launches."

Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Freelance News Writer

Anton Shilov is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Findecanor
    To me, this smells as if Qualcomm's motive is not much more than to avoid paying royalties to ARM for their in-house developed cores.

    In the last couple of weeks, Qualcomm has posted a proposal for RISC-V extensions that closely mirror some in ARM's instruction set, while also asking that RISC-V's compressed instructions (which 64-bit ARM does not have) be excluded from application profiles. That indicates that they could have a core design originally made to run ARM code that they are converting to run RISC-V — in the cheapest way they can get away with.
    Reply
  • ikjadoon
    So how real is that lawsuit? IIRC, Arm cancelled (or is attempting to cancel) Qualcomm’s Arm architectural licenses.

    https://www.semianalysis.com/p/arms-nuclear-option-qualcomm-must
    //

    Qualcomm has traditionally ignored smartwatch SoCs for years, so I’ll be quite eager to see a regular cadence.

    Perhaps these will be based on the “Little Phoenix” cores they bought with NUVIA?

    Would love to see custom RISC-V primary compute cores shipping in a mainstream device this decade. Ideally, x86 and Arm will improve or lose, if ISA competition works.
    Reply
  • ekio
    Good to hear.
    riscv needs to take off. We live in a world where too many ISA are chained property of greedy companies. That needs to change. Even if it’s qualcomm helping. At least we can expect from them some good implementations and some marketing traction. I wish they were targeting smartphones too but that will come when brands discover they can reduce cost and offer better battery life.
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    ikjadoon said:
    So how real is that lawsuit? IIRC, Arm cancelled (or is attempting to cancel) Qualcomm’s Arm architectural licenses.
    Only the license that is related to NUVIA processors. Not Qualcomm as a whole.
    Reply
  • ikjadoon
    JamesJones44 said:
    Only the license that is related to NUVIA processors. Not Qualcomm as a whole.

    It's Qualcomm's original architecture license as well.

    Arm claims it already terminated NUVIA's Architecture License Agreement / ALA, but because Qualcomm claimed NUVIA's IP is now backed by Qualcomm's original ALA, now Qualcomm's original ALA is also at risk. From Arm's updated response to Qualcomm:

    240. ... Arm denies any suggestion that this document waived Arm’s rights, prejudiced Qualcomm, or otherwise constituted an acknowledgment of or conferred on Qualcomm any rights to technology developed under the Nuvia ALA, since Qualcomm agreed in March 2021 to Arm’s condition that “such interaction and/or assistance does not expressly or impliedly waive any of Arm’s rights with respect to the novation,” and the Compliance Waiver was issued under the implementer ID corresponding with Nuvia’s ALA rather than Qualcomm’s ALA. ...

    250. Paragraph 250 contains legal conclusions to which no response is required. To the extent a response is required, Arm denies the allegations in this paragraph because, among other things, Qualcomm is materially breaching its ALA, giving Arm the right to terminate, and the Qualcomm ALA does not provide a license for or right to continue development of the Nuvia technology.

    In Arm's eyes, seemingly, any NUVIA IP is "excommunicado" for any ALA, be it Qualcomm or others. If Qualcomm is now trying to use its own ALA to ship NUVIA, Arm will cancel that ALA for using "breach of license IP". That seemingly means Qualcomm may no longer have an active Arm ALA (which is OK for consumer, IIRC, as Qualcomm uses a separate TLA to license Cortex cores).

    Now, Arm says it has the "the right to terminate" Qualcomm's original ALA (that Qualcomm licensed from Arm before buying NUVIA) and not that Arm will terminate.

    Qualcomm seemingly acknowledged the NUVIA ALA is dead, so the lawsuit is revolves whether Qualcomm's ALA is sufficient.
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    ikjadoon said:
    It's Qualcomm's original architecture license as well.

    Arm claims it already terminated NUVIA's Architecture License Agreement / ALA, but because Qualcomm claimed NUVIA's IP is now backed by Qualcomm's original ALA, now Qualcomm's original ALA is also at risk. From Arm's updated response to Qualcomm:



    In Arm's eyes, seemingly, any NUVIA IP is "excommunicado" for any ALA, be it Qualcomm or others. If Qualcomm is now trying to use its own ALA to ship NUVIA, Arm will cancel that ALA for using "breach of license IP". That seemingly means Qualcomm may no longer have an active Arm ALA (which is OK for consumer, IIRC, as Qualcomm uses a separate TLA to license Cortex cores).

    Now, Arm says it has the "the right to terminate" Qualcomm's original ALA (that Qualcomm licensed from Arm before buying NUVIA) and not that Arm will terminate.

    Qualcomm seemingly acknowledged the NUVIA ALA is dead, so the lawsuit is revolves whether Qualcomm's ALA is sufficient.
    Per my understanding this would only be triggered if Qualcomm went ahead and shipped Nuvia based processor (or something that looked like a NUVIA based processor).

    I don't think ARM is preemptively trying to terminate Qualcomm's Architecture license based on what I've read. Instead ARM is trying to force Qualcomm to pay for a new license that includes Nuvia based designs or scrap them altogether. Which is why I mentioned it's related to Nuvia.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Findecanor said:
    while also asking that RISC-V's compressed instructions (which 64-bit ARM does not have) be excluded from application profiles.
    Isn't that the basic idea behind Thumb?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family#Thumb
    I know it's been deprecated, and I believe even dropped from ARMv9-A.

    Findecanor said:
    That indicates that they could have a core design originally made to run ARM code that they are converting to run RISC-V — in the cheapest way they can get away with.
    Whether or not they're trying to repurpose existing IP, I can understand not wanting to have to complicate instruction decoders with a whole new mode, especially if you're targeting higher performance levels.
    Reply