RISC-V International, the global open hardware standards organization, has announced that Intel has joined RISC-V at the Premier membership level. Let that sink in for a minute.

Intel, which has made billions from its closed-source, complex instruction set computer (CISC) x86 processors, is joining forces with RISC-V, the open-source reduced instruction set computer (RISC) CPU group. What next? Dogs and cats living together!?

Dr. David Patterson, co-creator of RISC-V, helped make it an open lingua franca for computer chips, a set of instructions that would be used by all chipmakers and owned by none. Today, Patterson said, “I’m delighted that Intel, the company that pioneered the microprocessor 50 years ago, is now a member of RISC-V International.”

Why? Because Intel sees a future in which ARM, x86, and RISC-V all play major roles.  In particular, Intel has already seen strong demand for more RISC-V intellectual property (IP) and chip offerings.

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