What does "free-of-charge" mean when you are talking about hardware gadgets? Is there any actual hardware gadget? Or, is this a thing you download into an FPGA breakout board?
It's really about who invests money. Say if you're a large country that wants an independent supply of CPUs that can't be sanctioned, ARM/x86 isn't going to be where you invest
I would say the current state of RISC-V is complete but still lacks the final kick. Yes, you can now build an application core out of it, given that V, B, K extensions are now ratified under RVA22. However most high-performance u-archs are not built for client applications -- they are usually built for server/professional market and then derive down to the client side. (Edit: or if not in the Apple and ARM case, curated computing also needs something beyond regular client applications)
For server/professional market, RISC-V still lacks a selling point. Perhaps something like a pointer masking, memory tagging, or transactional memory in the J and T extensions which are still in very early stages.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 31.3 ms ] threadNEORV32 is specifically HDL, and free-of-charge likely refers to getting a free license (BSD 3-clause) to it.
For server/professional market, RISC-V still lacks a selling point. Perhaps something like a pointer masking, memory tagging, or transactional memory in the J and T extensions which are still in very early stages.