RISC-V

The chip crisis in early 2020 clearly revealed how dependent German and European industry was on the supply chains for microelectronic components. Despite experts repeatedly emphasising the importance of microelectronics to Europe’s capacity for innovation, shortages occurred which threatened major industrial sectors. In response, the European Chips Act was passed and the establishment of chip fabrication facilities in Europe was accelerated.
In addition to fabrication, a key factor in ensuring Europe’s technological sovereignty is to strengthen innovative chip development capabilities by providing appropriate specialist personnel. In this context, the RISC-V open standard instruction set architecture holds great promise because it eliminates many of the constraints of proprietary command sets. Since RISC-V is characterised by a very variable architecture, numerous different use cases are conceivable.
This acatech IMPULSE discusses the opportunities and threats of different scenarios and outlines options for decision-makers in business and politics.