Today, technology innovators must have new ways to create differentiated products. How are they supposed to meet the demand for more computational performance when semiconductor scaling laws are showing their limits? There is only one way: having a compute that is custom for specific needs. And what do we need for that? Several aspects: Architecture optimization, application profiling, hardware/software co-optimization, and domain-specific acceleration built on a strong design foundation. And this is great, but the design process must be as streamlined as possible to improve efficiency and reduce time to market while allowing companies to take ownership and remain flexible.
Introducing the 700 family: the next generation of RISC-V processors for Custom Compute
The new 700 family from Codasip, a configurable and customizable family of RISC-V baseline processors, enables unlimited innovation. The 700 family complements Codasip’s popular embedded cores by offering a different starting point to fit needs for higher performance.
Highly flexible, this family of processors makes Custom Compute available to everyone with endless possibilities. From powerful embedded to application cores, the family can be used in different ways. For those who need an immediate start, the cores can be used off the shelf, as a standard baseline. But the real value of the family is its possibility to quickly and efficiently tailor a design with Codasip Studio. Customers can play with configuration options for advanced optimization or target maximum innovation through customization.
Figure 1: The Codasip 700 family includes a range of cores that be used in different ways based on optimization needs. Source: Codasip.
Designers can push the technology limits through processor optimization for unique gains while keeping costs under control.
Bringing the world of Custom Compute to new applications with the Codasip 700 family
Depending on their application, developers have different problems to solve. The 700 family provides higher performance baseline cores compared to previous generations, allowing innovation by tailoring the processor to the given application needs, which delivers significant power, performance, and area benefits. In this family, the cores are quite versatile and can be used either standalone or in heterogeneous systems. The 700 family complement our popular embedded core offering.
With global tradewars and vendors changing their licensing, vendor lock-in is risky. With the 700 family and Codasip Custom Compute technology, our customers gain design freedom and better ownership of the technical choices in their solutions.
Figure 2: The Codasip 700 family includes flexible embedded and application processors for a broad range of market applications. Source: Codasip.
Codasip Studio is a key element of our Custom Compute solutions that unleashes the potential of our RISC-V processor IP. In a recent article Mike Eftimakis (VP strategy & ecosystem) explained why there is no one-size-fits-all approach to processor optimization and the role that Codasip Studio plays in enabling different levels for each use case through profiling.
Codasip Studio enables different levels of processor optimization for each use case through profiling. In a nutshell, this advanced processor design tool gives predictable results and improves time-to-market with a proven, highly automated approach.
Figure 3: Codasip Studio customization flow. Source Codasip.
By automating the processor design and the generation of a custom SDK & HDK, engineering teams can achieve better results in a more efficient way. Automation also accelerates exploration, investigation, and configuration to maximize any optimization.
By profiling software and looking at bottlenecks, it is possible to explore the architecture of the 700 family and define where design changes make sense. With Codasip Studio, software and hardware teams can collaborate to improve the system’s efficiency. Profiling in Codasip Studio means that different teams can perform the analysis and suggest changes to the hardware team. In a highly competitive landscape, differentiation and time are everything.
Say Hello to Codasip A730
Codasip A730 is the first core from the 700 family. It is a versatile mid-range 64-bit application core capable of running Linux and ideal for a broad range of applications. This dual-issue RISC-V application core is available in single- and multi-core configurations, and features configuration options that make it 2x more performant than previous generations.
Figure 4: Codasip A730 processor block diagram. Source: Codasip.
To fully leverage the benefits of using a common instruction set, Codasip customers may choose to use not only Codasip A730 but also future members of the 700 family or other area-efficient processors such as Codasip L31.
