[jsheard]

The RP2350 already has an OTP bit which permanently disables the ARM cores when set, so they wouldn't even have to sacrifice their economies of scale in order to make that play. A RISC-V-only variant could be exactly the same hardware, just with the OTP pre-set at the factory.

[irdc]

Exactly. And should RISC-V turn out to have been a hype (which I don’t think, but I do recognise that convincing the various MBA types that think they make the world go ‘round is not a given) they can do the opposite.

Which is nice for a chip they plan to make up to the 2040’s.

[gary_0]

> And should RISC-V turn out to have been a hype

Over 10 billion RISC-V devices have shipped, including microcontrollers in millions of Western Digital storage devices, nVidia GPUs, etc. They have no reason to go back to ARM; in many cases it's not even possible as ARM is very restrictive about extensions to the ISA. RISC-V is here to stay.

What remains to be seen is if RISC-V makes it to the CPU big leagues and ends up powering smartphones and such.

[nadius]

im fascinated with the idea of using the same photomask for different "kind" of ICs

[jsheard]

Basically everyone does it, the economy of silicon design means it is very often cheaper to make one or just a handful of masks and then artificially disable features to create granular variants inbetween the actual hardware variants. It's also used to salvage defective dies, if the defect is in an optional part of the chip then they can disable that part and sell it anyway.