Huawei's self-developed instruction sets "Lingxi Instruction Set" and "Linxiisa" have aroused heated discussions among many netizens. For Huawei, self-developed instruction sets are an important strategic move. In the past, Huawei's mobile phone chips and server chips have always used the ARM architecture, but now, due to the fact that ARM is no longer authorized to Huawei's ARMV9 instruction set, Huawei has decided to fully develop its own instruction set in order to get rid of its dependence on ARM and avoid technical and licensing restrictions, so that it can better control its own technical process and avoid interference and trouble from the outside world.
As a company with full-stack hardware and software development capabilities, Huawei believes that it is not difficult to develop instruction sets, and it has the ability to independently determine its own technology path and development direction. However, the difficulty of self-development of instruction set lies not in the instruction set itself, but in the construction and support of the ecosystem.
Ecology is an important factor in measuring the success of the development of an instruction set. Take the x86 architecture and the ARM architecture as examples, the reason why they have achieved irreplaceable positions in their respective fields is that they both form a strong ecosystem with different operating systems**. The combination of the X86 architecture and the Windows operating system has formed the famous Wintel ecosystem, which includes many software and hardware manufacturers, making X86 a winning general in the PC field. The combination of the ARM architecture and the Android operating system has formed an A-A ecosystem, which has also attracted a large number of software and hardware manufacturers, making ARM mainstream in the field of mobile devices.
In contrast, instruction sets such as RISC-V and Loongarch, despite their technical advantages, are unable to compete with huge ecosystems such as x86 and ARM due to the imperfection of their ecosystems. This shows the importance of the ecosystem to attract and integrate more developers and vendors to form a unique and large ecosystem, so that instruction sets and chips can be widely used and supported.
For Huawei, R&D instruction sets are not a problem, but the key is to build a strong and competitive ecosystem. Huawei has the advantage of its own operating system, HarmonyOS, which can be used to be compatible with its own Lingxi instruction set and create its own unique ecosystem, similar to Apple's ecosystem. However, achieving this goal is not an easy task and requires a long period of development and sustained efforts.
First, Huawei needs to attract more developers and partners to provide sufficient software support for its self-developed instruction set. By holding developer conferences and providing developer tools and resources, we will attract developers to join and support and build a thriving application ecosystem.
Second, Huawei needs to establish partnerships with major software and hardware vendors, focusing on cooperation and application innovation in various fields. Through in-depth cooperation, we will launch competitive products and solutions, attract partners to participate in and support Huawei's instruction set ecosystem, and form a thriving ecosystem.
Finally, Huawei also needs to increase the visibility and recognition of the Lingxi instruction set through marketing and publicity. Through the products and solutions launched in cooperation with partners from all walks of life, the unique advantages and performance brought by the Lingxi instruction set are demonstrated to users, and the confidence and recognition of users are enhanced, so as to further promote the development of the ecosystem.
The decision to develop Huawei's self-developed instruction set is a clear strategic direction and a challenging task. It is relatively easy to develop the instruction set in-house, but building a strong ecosystem requires hard work and long-term investment. By attracting the support of developers and partners, and leveraging its full-stack self-developed software and hardware capabilities, Huawei is expected to build a unique and powerful ecosystem to realize the value and applications of self-developed instruction sets, and further promote Huawei's technological innovation and development. Although this is a difficult task, as long as Huawei can seize the opportunities and be good at coping with challenges, I believe that Huawei's self-developed instruction set will be able to succeed in the market in the future and inject strong impetus into Huawei's development in the chip field.