RISC-V to the Core: New Horizons

By _Renesas Blog

December 4, 2023

The increasing popularity of the RISC-V ISA within the semiconductor industry is a boon for innovation. It provides designers with unprecedented flexibility and will slowly but steadily challenge and transform the current landscape of embedded systems. In the past, Renesas has embraced RISC-V technology introducing 32-bit ASSP devices for voice-control and motor-control built on CPU cores developed by Andes Technology Corp.

The exciting next step is the availability of the first, in-house engineered, CPU core. A high-level block diagram of the CPU is shown below:

But what‘s so special about it? First, this CPU is suitable for many different application contexts. It can be used as main CPU or to manage an on-chip subsystem or even to be embedded in a specialized ASSP device. Clearly it is very flexible. Second, the implementation is very efficient in terms of silicon area, which helps reduce operating current and leakage current during standby time, besides the obvious effect of smaller cost impact. Third, despite targeting small embedded systems, it provides a surprisingly high level of computational throughput to fulfill the increasingly demanding performance requirement of even deeply embedded applications.

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