The RISC-V architecture has become a revelation in the technology world, although it is true that its main implications have been more focused on the professional sector, a reality that may soon change with Rome, the first laptop based on a RISC-V processor which will theoretically have international availability.

It’s an interesting product that has really generated a lot of interest, but it looks like this RISC-V-based laptop will be primarily aimed at developers. It is clear, however, that even with this perfectly defined destiny, Rome will play a very important role, because it could become one a key pillar for application development which will allow mainstream consumer notebooks based on said architecture to be launched in the future.

The reason is very simple, there is no point in launching a RISC-V based laptop and targeting it at the general consumer market if there are no interesting applications to appeal to users. We cannot build a house from the roofand so Rome will focus on developers.

Rome specs: RISC-V SoCs in 12nm and 28nm

This new notebook will consist of a SoM («system on a module) where the SoC will be integrated with a quad-core RISC-V CPU, GPU and NPU (neural processing unit). This is very interesting because it means Rome will have specialized hardwarealthough we don’t yet have details on the performance we can expect.

Rome will have an extensible design, which means that the user you will be able to change the SoM and install a better configuration, something that seems very successful to me because it will extend the life of the device and prevent the user from having to completely change the system. At the moment, two possible configurations are being considered, a 12nm chip in the “Pro” version and another 28nm in the “standard” version.

Such hardware upgrades could be free make it easy for developers, and they could also enjoy discounts and other events. It makes sense because it’s a way to attract more developers during the first phase of a project, which tends to be one of the most complex.

Otherwise, this first RISC-V based laptop is expected to come with up to 16 GB of LPDDR4-LPDDR4X memorySSD storage capacity up to 256 GB and ARM SecurCore SC3000, a chip specially designed for security, also known as “Secure Enclave” in English. This new laptop is compatible with most Linux distributions.

At the moment we do not have details about the possible price of this laptop, but this is a project that is supported by RISC-V International, so it has credibility and should happen without much trouble, at least in theory. Do you find this team interesting? The comments are yours.