It looks like the Linux 5.13 kernel will be supporting an interesting RISC-V feature this spring.
Queued up now in RISC-V’s “for-next” branch as of this week is support for XIP, or eXecute In Place. RISC-V XIP allows for code to be executed directly from non-volatile storage that is directly addressable by the CPU. RISC-V XIP allows for executing code directly off CPU-addressable storage like QSPI NOR flash memory without first having to load it into system RAM.