Sifive Launches the World’s Smallest Commercial 64-bit Embedded Core

RISC-V Leader brings unmatched advanced 64-bit Core IP capability to embedded space.

SiFive, the leading provider of commercial RISC-V processor IP, yesterday announced the launch of the S2 Core IP Series at the Linley Spring Processor Conference in Santa Clara. The S2 Core IP Series is a 64-bit addition to SiFive’s 2 Series Core IP and brings advanced features to SiFive’s smallest microcontrollers. The S2 Series further adds to SiFive’s extensive, vastly customizable, optimized, silicon-proven, embedded core IP portfolio, which comprises the 2, 3, 5, and 7 Core IP Series in E (32-bit) and S (64-bit) variants.

SIFIVE LAUNCHES THE WORLD’S SMALLEST COMMERCIAL 64-BIT EMBEDDED CORE

Edge SoCs face the diverse requirements of real-time latency, deterministic capability and stringent power constraints. The S2 enables SoCs to have an always-on low power CPU that can be combined with high-performance CPUs that switch on only when applications demand performance, such as in voice-activated smart devices. The 2 Series can be configured to be as small as just 13,500 gates (in RV32E form). The S2 is just half the size of a similarly configured S5 core. Security is enhanced by separation between secure and non-secure domains. This degree of flexibility is what is needed to meet the constraints in terms of power, area and real-time demands as well as the requirements in terms of performance of modern edge workloads and applications. The S2 Series will be available as a customizable Core IP Series as well as in the form of standard cores via SiFive’s Core Designer.

SiFive’s 64-bit S Cores bring their hallmark efficiency, configurability and silicon-proven Core IP expertise to 64-bit embedded architectures,

said Ted Speers, head of product architecture and planning at Microchip Technology’s Microsemi subsidiary and RISC-V Foundation board member.

The S Cores will enable innovation for the next generation of embedded compute.

Sifive Launches the World’s Smallest Commercial 64-bit Embedded Core

The ever-growing number of connected devices with artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, and real-time workloads have generated a massive demand for greatly enhanced embedded intelligence in compute at the edge. Legacy architectures have long ignored the need for small, efficient, 64-bit, real-time embedded processors. SiFive has secured more than 25 design wins for the 2 Series Core IP alone since its launch at DAC in June 2018 and is now launching the S2 Series for power- and area-constrained, high performance 64-bit embedded applications. The S2 has no direct competitive equivalent in the market in terms of offering 64-bit capabilities or advanced features within the footprint of a SiFive 2 Series Core IP. The 64-bit capability of the S2 allows for far easier integration than 32-bit physical addressing and provides the benefit of fast and efficient access to slow or far-away memories via flexible memory maps and micro instruction caches. SiFive is the sole RISC-V Core IP provider to offer 64-bit fully coherent heterogenous compute all the way up to nine cores per cluster where high-throughput processing is needed. Existing and new features are shared across E and S variants of the 2 Series, which include enhanced debug and trace.

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