With the groundswell of interest in open source digital design in recent years we decided to take the opportunity to chat with some of the key people involved in this fast growing movement, working in association with the Free and Open Source Silicon Foundation to produce the Open Source Digital Design Insights (OSDDI) video series.

What better way to launch OSDDI than with an interview with Krste Asanović, Professor in the EECS Department at the University of California, Co-Founder and Chief Architect at SiFive — and, of course, one of the inventors of the RISC-V open ISA.

The interview was filmed in 2015 at ORConf in Geneva and it’s fair to say that a lot has happened since then. However, it provides a great introduction to the history of and motivation behind RISC-V, together with just some of the benefits and a look to the future.