alt Hacker NewsCould be good if a large firm stabilized the RISC-V version fragmentation with a massive standard SoC product boost in the Android space.
But more likely, the early product line will meet the same fate as the dog in "Old Yeller" (1957) in a market consolidation push. =3
Replies
brucehoult • last Thursday at 11:16 PM
What version fragmentation?
Pretty much everything coming out in 2026 -- including Ventana's Veyron V2 -- is RVA23.
One profile to rule them all.
Currently-shipping applications processors are either RVA20 (plus the B extension in practice) or RVA22 with V as a standard option.
That's not fragmentation, it's just a standard linear progression. Each thing can run all the software from the previous thing:
RVA20 (what e.g. Ubuntu 25.04 and earlier require)
-> RVA20 + B
-> RVA22
-> RVA22 + V
-> RVA23 (what Ubuntu 25.10 and later require)➕ show 1 reply
I'd be surprised if Qualcomm replaces their application processors (the cores that typically run Android/Linux or QNX) with RISC-V any time soon. Aarch64's ecosystem is huge, and Qualcomm would cut their customers off from it by moving fully to RISC-V.
They're more likely to replace the smaller CPU cores imo.