Andes Announces the AndesCore™ AX66 supporting RVA23, Multi-cluster, Hypervisor and Android

Hsinchu, Taiwan — Oct 18, 2024 — Andes Technology, a leading supplier of high efficiency, low-power 32/64-bit RISC-V processor cores and Founding Premier member of RISC-V International, today announces the AndesCore™ AX66 out-of-order superscalar multicore processor IP supporting the RVA23 profile. The AX66 is the 2^nd member of the high-performance out-of-order AX60 series. Built on the success of the AX65 with the same 13-stage pipeline, 4-wide decode, and 8-wide out-of-order execution, the AX66 introduces many new features, including Vector and Vector Crypto support, Hypervisor and AIA, Multi-Cluster support with CHI, and RVA23 profile support. AX66’s versatile capabilities on performance scalability, multimedia, security, and virtualization makes it an ideal main processor in high-performance Linux and Android applications such as edge/data center AI, infotainment, networking, and vision/camera applications.

The AX66 boosts the SpecInt2006 performance over the 1^st generation AX65 by more than 15%. Each core has 64KB private L1 instruction and data caches and up to 1MB private L2 cache, and each cluster contains up to 8 cores and a shared L3 cache up to 32MB. Besides the IO coherence interface already in the AX65, the AX66 adds a Coherence Hub Interface (CHI) for multi-cluster coherence. With the CHI interface support, we can use much more AX66 CPUs to work together in the same cache-coherent domain. Together with the Hypervisor, AIA and optional IOMMU technologies, the AX66 can fully virtualize the entire multi-cluster CPU subsystem for resource sharing and security. Moreover, the AX66 supports the RISC-V standard external debug and instruction trace interfaces to facilitate fast system development, analysis and debugging.

“We are excited to announce our 2^nd member of the top-of-the-line AX60 series, to further expand our portfolio,” said Dr. Charlie Su, President and CTO of Andes Technology. “We have added numerous features to the AX66, enabling its usage across a wide range of applications. With the RVV support, the AX66 can now handle more advanced AI/ML and multimedia applications. The inclusion of the Vector Crypto extension and the optional IOMMU provides the security capability for a modern day platform system. Additionally, the Hypervisor, AIA, CHI interface support make the AX66 suitable for the data center network applications such as Smart NIC or Data Processing Unit(DPU), and edge servers or devices running containerized applications. The inclusion of the RVA23 profile allows the AX66 to run Android OS on wearables, POS terminals, digital signage, and TV set-top boxes. We anticipate the AX66 to further penetrate high-end mainstream markets.”

The AndesCore™ AX66 is to be available for lead customers in Q4 2024 through the early access program and for general customers in 2025. For further information about the AX66 and the AX60 series processors, please contact Andes Technology.

About Andes Technology

Nineteen years in business and a Founding Premier member of RISC-V International, Andes is a publicly-listed company (TWSE: 6533; SIN: US03420C2089; ISIN: US03420C1099) and a leading supplier of high-performance/low-power 32/64-bit embedded processor IP solutions. Its V5 RISC-V CPU families range from tiny 32-bit cores to advanced 64-bit Out-of-Order processors with DSP, FPU, Vector, Linux, superscalar, automotive and/or multi/many-core capabilities. By the end of 2023, the cumulative volume of Andes-Embedded™ SoCs has surpassed 14 billion. For more information, please visit https://www.andestech.com .