The promise of RISC-V is probably not that it cuts pennies of a $1 embedded ARM core (or dollars off a $100 core).

Instead, it’s that Moore’s law keeps on trucking along, so now we have lots of dark silicon (you cannot turn the whole core on at once, or it will turn into a puddle of glass) and specialized silicon.

RISC-V removes all the gatekeepers (except TSMC and the other fabs) that historically blocked new specialized silicon.

I could get an ARM license, but suspect that, at best, that means dealing with sales folks and also building out a legal division just to manage the license.

I could be wrong, but it’s easier to go with the open core, in the same way that I suspect I cannot afford to figure out how much I would have to pay in order to license windows for my servers.