An open-source libre GPU project is under the works by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton. He is the hardware engineer who developed the EOMA68, an earth-friendly computer.
The project already has access to $250k USD in funding. The basic idea for this “libre GPU” is to use a RISC-V processor.
The GPU will be mostly software-based. It will leverage the LLVM compiler infrastructure and utilize a software-based Vulkan renderer to emit code and run on the RISC-V processor. The Vulkan implementation will be used for writing in the Rust programming language.
The project’s current road-map has details only on the software side of figuring out the RISC-V LLVM back-end state. Work is being done on writing a user-space graphics driver, implementing the necessary bits for the proposed RISC-V extensions like “Simple-V”. While doing this, they will start figuring out the hardware design and the rest of the project. The road-map is quite simplified for the arduous task at hand.
The project already has access to $250k USD in funding. The basic idea for this “libre GPU” is to use a RISC-V processor.
The GPU will be mostly software-based. It will leverage the LLVM compiler infrastructure and utilize a software-based Vulkan renderer to emit code and run on the RISC-V processor. The Vulkan implementation will be used for writing in the Rust programming language.
The project’s current road-map has details only on the software side of figuring out the RISC-V LLVM back-end state. Work is being done on writing a user-space graphics driver, implementing the necessary bits for the proposed RISC-V extensions like “Simple-V”. While doing this, they will start figuring out the hardware design and the rest of the project. The road-map is quite simplified for the arduous task at hand.
To read more, please visit: https://hub.packtpub.com/a-libre-gpu-effort-based-on-risc-v-rust-llvm-and-vulkan-by-the-developer-of-an-earth-friendly-computer/.