APRIL 2025
Sustaining Standards
Leadership
The United States Cannot Disengage from RISCV
By Sujai Shivakumar and Julie Heng
R
ISCV architecture is an open, international standard governing how software interfaces
with hardware in a computer. It serves as a shared language that sets the parameters for
communication and interoperability. Open standards provide a means for industry participants
to collaborate and develop technological solutions that can help accelerate innovation and limit misuse
of intellectual property (IP).
Some policymakers fear an open standard could threaten U.S. national security and competitive
advantage. However, the openness of the standard does not by itself pose a risk. Indeed, RISCV
does not contain sensitive IP, nor does its cooperative development require rms to divulge IP. Firms
compete on technologies developed using this platform, not on the platform itself. RISCV enhances
the competitiveness of U.S. chip design rms by creating a exible, low-risk, and low-cost platform for
collaboration. To capitalize on this opportunity, the United States should continue to support RISCV for
future chip innovation.
RISCV in the ISA Landscape
Currently, there are two leading semiconductor instruction set architectures (ISAs) covering most
of the market: x86 (from U.S.-based Intel/AMD) and ARM (from United Kingdom–based Arm Holdings,
which is majority owned by the Japanese SoftBank Group). There are two primary kinds of ISAs—
complex instruction set computers (CISCs) and reduced instruction set computers (RISCs)—which are
organized dierently and operate at dierent eciencies; x86 is based on CISC principles, and ARM
is based on RISC. x86 ISAs are used in most laptop and desktop computers, while ARM has almost
complete market share in the mobile world. ARM and Intel/AMD ISAs are proprietary standards, so
other companies and designers can license ARM IP or buy and use processors based on Intel/AMD IP.
