As we all know, open source has also reached hardware, even with quite interesting free hardware projects that we all know about. In fact, lately the Linux Foundation has a new ally, it is a project that has given much to talk about, I am referring to RISC-V project, a totally open ISA and for which microarchitectures can be developed to run it, thus creating open-source microprocessors.
There are already many interested in this architecture, such as AMD, Samsung, BAE, Huawei, HP,IBM, Lattice, Micron, NVIDIA, NXP, Oracle, Qualcomm, Western Digital, SiFive, etc. And all those members of the RISC-V foundation are not there for the love of art, but rather they are interested in creating more personalized and specific chips for certain tasks thanks to the flexibility and advantages of this type of open project.
The truth is that RISC-V is not the first open architecture, but it has come to revolutionize the sector due to its characteristics. Based on RISC, it can help create faster, more efficient and more secure chips in the future, therefore, your interest is total. Under the umbrella of this foundation, which is also under Linux Foundation, members could collaborate to prevent or fix problems like the ones we've seen with Specter and Meltdown.
In addition, one of the heavyweights in terms of computer architectures, David Patterson, believes that RISC-V will be very flexible when it comes to serving as a basis for creating very specific chips, that is, the famous custom chips that are so much in demand for certain tasks today, and that may have advantages compared to rigid units made by Intel. In fact, AMD has been doing this type of custom chip for a few years now and thanks to them it has achieved almost the entire market for game console chips, such as the Xbox, Play Station, Wii, etc.