- Modular laptop vendor Framework announced it will launch a RISC-V product in 2025
- RISC-V is the hardware equivalent of Linux, open source and free
- More and more tech companies are adopting it, but it hasn’t yet gone mainstream in any significant way.
RISC-V, an open source ISA developed at the University of California, Berkeley in 2010, continues to gain attention as a customizable alternative to proprietary ISAs like x86 and Arm.
Its license-free approach allows manufacturers to create and modify processors without restrictions, leading to their adoption in a variety of specialized applications, and this year could mark a key step toward broader consumer adoption of the architecture.
For RISC-V to truly reach the mainstream, it still needs to gain traction in the laptop market. Hong Kong-based DeepComputing introduced the first RISC-V laptop, the Roma, in 2023, followed by the DC-Roma II in 2024, which comes with Ubuntu Linux preinstalled. Although praised for its open source flexibility, the laptop’s performance lags behind x86 and Arm alternatives – but speaking to IEEE SpectrumYuning Liang, CEO of DeepComputing, said the company’s upcoming DC-Roma III will close this gap with performance comparable to the Arm Cortex-A76.
Enter the frame
Perhaps more interestingly, DeepComputing is collaborating with Framework, a company known for its modular, repairable laptops, to create a RISC-V motherboard for the Framework Laptop 13. Nirav Patel, CEO of Framework, said: “If we let’s look at some of the generations around the world [software] Tails, we’re starting to see a line of sight toward RISC-V out-of-the-box in something like a laptop, or even a phone.
According to IEEE Spectrum“While still aimed at early adopters and developers, it will be the most accessible and refined RISC-V laptop yet, and it will ship to users with the same look and feel as the Framework laptops that use x86 chips.”
Following the initial announcement in June 2024, Framework launched a product page for the RISC-V motherboard, but it remains a placeholder.
DeepComputing’s site reveals more details, however, including images of the DC-Roma RISC-V motherboard for the Framework 13 laptop, one of which you can see at the top of the page. The board is powered by the JH7110 64-bit RISC-V quad-core processor and supports both Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 and Fedora 41.
RISC-V has already been adopted by a number of technology companies. Western Digital uses it for storage controllers, British startup Blueshift Memory’s BlueFive processor is built on an open source RISC-V core, China’s XiangShan project has developed two RISC-V designs, and Ubitium has a RISC processor -V universal which consolidates everything. computing workloads on a single, affordable chip.
We’ll likely see more details on Framework’s RISC-V Laptop 13 in the coming months, but given the current focus on developers and early adopters, as well as the performance limitations compared to established architectures like x86 and Arm, it seems fair to say that while this is undoubtedly a huge step forward for the architecture, RISC-V is not yet ready for mainstream adoption.
