For more background, check out our Apple and ARM video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbkFfo7w3II RISC-V is a processor architecture and instruction set developed at UC Berkeley. It's attracted huge interest from everyone from startups to tech giants because it's entirely free and open source. Most current processors come with license agreements and are proprietary intellectual property, but anyone can manufacture a RISC-V chip, or design their own new processor. Big companies like Western Digital are already announcing a switch to RISC-V, and others like Google and Nvidia have partnered with them. There's a lot of ways this project could fail, but it also has the potential to make custom processor design available to a lot of people. You probably won't be getting a RISC-V PC anytime soon, and chip makers like Intel or Apple probably aren't about to switch to RISC-V but expect these chips to start showing up in all kinds of devices very soon. For our sources check out this doc https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRUeK68Ut1tMUeSiXYGRq7LvGV2Bj5mD6Q902HDdv9ePeVlUOlWBFmb1lKfQeX1gd9iqFontO6rf-XB/pub Get More Engadget: • Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/engadget • Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/engadget • Follow us on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/engadget • Read more: http://www.engadget.com/