>Also it's a just a little unrealistic to expect something that will have taped out 6 to 9 months ago to have extensions that aren't even at draft 1.0 status yet, let alone ratified. Any chip with those is going to be 18 to 24 months away.
Together with claims earlier this year that there'd be some ratified V (a 1.0 draft?) by September and they'd have chips ready pretty much immediately.
What I understand at this point is that this simply hasn't happened, but I do not know the specifics.
I don't believe they've ever said they'd have chips available immediately. That would be some kind of time travel.
What I believe they've said in the past is they'll have cores available for licencing immediately, and indeed the "VIU75" with "Vector Intelligence" was announced last week. Customers will be able to sign contracts now, and get preliminary near-1.0 RTL to use in FPGAs for testing and software development. By the time the customers are ready to tape-out in six or twelve months the final spec-compliant RTL would be available.
This was based on SiFive's recent announcements.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200914005108/en/SiF...
Together with claims earlier this year that there'd be some ratified V (a 1.0 draft?) by September and they'd have chips ready pretty much immediately.
What I understand at this point is that this simply hasn't happened, but I do not know the specifics.