Omdia: It is expected that the annual growth rate of the RISC-V processor market size can sustainably reach close to 50% by 2030.

Omdia stated that in the past three years, an increasing number of RISC vendors have entered the RISC-V ecosystem, and processors and accelerators containing RISC-V technology have experienced astonishing growth at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 75% from 2020 to 2024. By 2030, Omdia predicts that the annual growth rate will sustainably approach 50%. This translates to a 57% annual growth rate over the decade from 2020 to 2030, surpassing historical development speeds of previous architectures such as x86 and ARM. RISC-V is an open standard instruction set architecture based on research results from the University of California, Berkeley Parallel Computing Laboratory. It offers several technological advantages, including high performance, low power consumption, compact design, ease of scalability, and most notably, open-source features. As a freely open instruction set architecture designed for modern software ecosystems, RISC-V provides significant flexibility and cost advantages. RISC-V can be designed and used flexibly in various forms of processors such as xPU/MPU, AI accelerators NPU, GPU, FPGA, MCU, and more. Its popularity stems from the free open-source license it provides, allowing anyone to develop hardware using the architecture and even customizing instruction sets based on design requirements. IP suppliers and tool providers have made substantial contributions by helping chip designers reduce barriers to usage and conversion, thus genuinely driving the development of the RISC-V ecosystem. Overview and future predictions of RISC-V penetration in MCU devices RISC-V was first adopted in the MCU field and is gradually moving towards higher-end applications. In the past three years, more and more RISC vendors have entered the RISC-V ecosystem, and its growth rate is flourishing. Omdia predicts that by 2030, in terms of revenue, RISC-V's penetration rate in 32-bit MCUs globally will reach 9.5%, and in the Chinese region, it will reach 12.2%. Looking at shipment volumes, the outlook is even more optimistic. By 2030, RISC-V's penetration rate in global MCUs will reach 16.7%, with an expected penetration rate of 23.6% in the Chinese region, sufficient to become the mainstream architecture in the chip core and accelerator market. Huge development space and broad prospects for RISC-V in the automotive and high-performance computing sectors In the field of computing control chips, it often takes decades for a new architecture to be established, accepted by the industry, and mature. Compared to this, the ten years from the establishment of the RISC-V International Foundation to its current popularity are relatively short. While RISC-V is growing rapidly, it is still in the early stages of its upward trajectory globally. RISC-V also follows the natural law of development, gradually penetrating from mainstream consumer fields to industrial control, communication connections, and then towards more challenging high-performance, high energy efficiency, and high security directions. Therefore, RISC-V has many areas where growth can be sustained, especially in sectors with high barriers and value-added, such as automotive and high-end accelerator computing. These sectors can fully leverage its flexibility, design simplicity, and help achieve better PPA metrics (performance, power consumption, and chip size). Such seemingly limitless development trends are made possible by the comprehensive promotion and construction of the entire ecosystem in both hardware and software fields, mutually reinforcing and gradually moving towards a mature and healthy development stage. Limitless prospects for RISC-V As a continuously innovative architecture, RISC-V's core design typically achieves better performance and maintains a smaller chip size compared to traditional designs. Additionally, with its scalability, support for vector and security functions, RISC-V has been proven to be very suitable for supporting the current thriving AI accelerator designs in the industry. RISC-V has entered many high-end applications such as high-performance computing, data centers, and other high-computing domains. Like the development paths of every emerging innovative technology, although initial market revenue and share may not be as high, its growth trajectory is remarkable, and the broad prospects are not to be underestimated. Omdia believes that the relationship between ARM and RISC-V is not one of substitution but rather a healthy competitive relationship. Over time, RISC-V is expected to become the leading choice in RISC architectures, complementing ARM and working together with other architectures to create a richer and more diverse ecosystem.