RISC-V, a novel processor architecture, is steadily gaining popularity. Thanks to its high performance, flexibility, and open-source nature, it is a viable alternative to Intel and ARM, used in more and more industries every year, from IoT to smartphones, automotive, HPC, and many others. The total market for RISC-V SoCs is forecasted to reach $92.7B by 2030, representing a 47% annual growth rate.
BellSoft is dedicated to providing developers and enterprises with the most complete Java experience. Our Liberica JDK already supports the widest range of system configurations on the market compared to other vendors. And now, we are happy to announce the release of Liberica JDK builds with RISC-V support!
Download Liberica JDK for RISC-V
The state of Java for RISC-V
In our previous article, we discussed the grounds for RISC-V’s rapid expansion, but what does Java have to do with the embedded systems where RISC-V is primarily used?
Indeed, Java is perceived as the programming language used chiefly for enterprise applications, but it also has its share of the embedded market, the key reasons being:
- High performance and small memory footprint, especially when using a dedicated JDK build,
- Great portability thanks to the WORA (write once run anywhere), so there’s no need to rewrite an application when introducing a new architecture in production,
- Numerous standard libraries for any task keep the developers from writing their implementation for a particular use case,
- Convenient in-built memory management, helping to avoid errors related to memory allocation (common for C/C++).
Therefore, a Java runtime with RISC-V support will be a valuable addition to the tool arsenal of companies wishing to benefit from this novel ISA. Great news is that the OpenJDK port on the Linux/RISC-V platform has already been integrated into JDK 19. Although RISC-V and ARM are different architectures, the new port is similar to the aarch64 port, with which BellSoft gained vast experience by introducing optimizations within JEP 315.
Nevertheless, even with the port available, you need to correctly build and test the JDK binary to use it with RISC-V, which is a complicated and time-consuming procedure. Several Linux distributions offer packages for RISC-V, but until now, no OpenJDK vendor has released tested and supported OpenJDK 21 builds for RISC-V.
BellSoft has provided Liberica JDK tailored to ARM-based embedded systems for several years. We decided to expand the line of supported system configurations with this architecture to satisfy the growing demand for developing applications that run seamlessly on RISC-V. Liberica JDK builds are fully compatible with RISC-V, so your existing or to-be-developed applications can be ported without issues.
Download Liberica JDK for RISC-V now!
Liberica JDK builds for Linux on RISC-V are available for JDK 21 LTS: BellSoft commits to supporting version 21 until 2032, providing users with all the benefits of an open-source Java runtime from a leading OpenJDK contributor. This includes quarterly CPU/PSU updates and additional solutions for Java development. The RISC-V support in Liberica JDK comes with a Standard JDK flavor, offering three VMs: Server VM, Client VM, and Minimal VM designed specifically for systems with lower performance so that your Java applications start up faster and utilize less memory.
Liberica JDK is free for personal and commercial use.
For those requiring enterprise-level support for the Java runtime, BellSoft offers flexible support plans featuring 24/7 service directly from the Java engineers with over 20 years of experience working with OpenJDK. Moreover, we leverage our expertise when building and testing the builds, and we are ready to promptly resolve issues you encounter with the runtime. Contact us, and we will be happy to answer all your questions!
