RISC-V

Western Digital recently announced plans to use the RISC-V ISA across its existing product stack as well as for future products that will combine processing and storage. The company plans to develop RISC-V cores internally and license them from third parties to use in its own controllers and SoCs, along with using third-party RISC-V based controllers. To develop the RISC-V ecosystem, Western Digital has already engaged in partnerships and investments in various companies working on RISC-V projects. For example, recently Western Digital invested in Esperanto Technologies, a company led by experienced CPU designers. Given the diverse portfolio of products that Western Digital has today as well as its longer-term intention to move compute closer to data (by embracing in-storage computing, for example), it is evident...