Apple Shows Interest in RISC-V Chips, a Competitor To iPhones' Arm Tech

Apple wants to hire a programmer who knows about RISC-V, a processor technology that competes with the Arm designs that power iPhones, iPads and newer Macs. The company's interest emerged in a job posting for a "RISC-V high performance programmer" that Apple published Thursday. From a report: It's not clear exactly what Apple's plans are for the technology. Landing even a supporting role in an Apple product would be a major victory for RISC-V allies seeking to establish their technology as an alternative to older chip families like Arm or Intel's x86. One of the RISC-V's creators is seminal processor designer David Patterson, and startups like SiFive and Esperanto Technologies are commercializing RISC-V designs. The job description offers some details about Apple's plans. The programmer will work on a team that's "implementing innovative RISC-V solutions and state of the art routines. This is to support the necessary computation for such things as machine learning, vision algorithms, signal and video processing," the job description says.

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