NASA Selects SiFive and Makes RISC-V the Go-to Ecosystem for Future Space Missions
SiFive X280 delivers 100x increase in computational capability with leading power efficiency, fault tolerance, and compute flexibility to propel next-generation planetary and surface missions
San Mateo, Calif., September 7, 2022 - SiFive, Inc., the founder and leader of RISC-V computing, today announced it has been selected by NASA to provide the core CPU for NASA’s next generation High-Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) processor. HPSC is expected to be used in virtually every future space mission, from planetary exploration to lunar and Mars surface missions. HPSC will utilize an 8-core, SiFive® Intelligence™ X280 RISC-V vector core, as well as four additional SiFive RISC-V cores, to deliver 100x the computational capability of today’s space computers. This massive increase in computing performance will help usher in new possibilities for a variety of mission elements such as autonomous rovers, vision processing, space flight, guidance systems, communications, and other applications.
“As the leading RISC-V, U.S. based, semiconductor company we are very proud to be selected by the premier world space agency to power their most mission critical applications,” said Jack Kang, SVP Business Development, SiFive. “The X280 demonstrates orders of magnitude performance gains over competing processor technology and our SiFive RISC-V IP allows NASA to take advantage of the support, flexibility, and long-term viability of the fast-growing global RISC-V ecosystem. We’ve always said that with SiFive the future has no limits, and we’re excited to see the impact of our innovations extend well beyond our planet.”
The SiFive X280 is a multi-core capable RISC-V processor with vector extensions and SiFive Intelligence Extensions and is optimized for AI/ML compute at the edge. The X280 is ideal for applications requiring high-throughput, single-thread performance while under significant power constraints. The X280 has demonstrated a 100x increase in compute capabilities compared to today’s space computers. In scientific and space workloads, the X280 provides several orders of magnitude improvement compared to competitive CPU solutions.
The open and collaborative nature of RISC-V will allow the broad academic and scientific software development community to contribute and develop scientific applications and algorithms, as well optimizing the many math functions, filters, transforms, neural net libraries, and other software libraries, as part of a robust and long-term software ecosystem.
The HPSC processor and X280 compute subsystem is expected to be useful to other government agencies in a variety of applications including industrial automation, edge computing, ratification intelligence, and aerospace applications.
For more information on SiFive’s market-leading RISC-V IP portfolio and how it is well-suited for Aerospace and Defense applications, please visit SiFive.com.
About SiFive
As the pioneers who introduced RISC-V to the world, SiFive is transforming the future of compute by bringing the limitless potential of RISC-V to the highest performance and most data-intensive applications in the world. SiFive’s unrivaled compute platforms have enabled leading technology companies around the world to innovate, optimize and deliver the most advanced solutions of tomorrow across every market segment of chip design, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, automotive, data center, mobile, and consumer. With SiFive, the future of RISC-V has no limits. For more information, please visit SiFive.com.
Related Semiconductor IP
- 64 bit RISC-V Multicore Processor with 2048-bit VLEN and AMM
- RISC-V AI Acceleration Platform - Scalable, standards-aligned soft chiplet IP
- 32 bit RISC-V Multicore Processor with 256-bit VLEN and AMM
- All-In-One RISC-V NPU
- ISO26262 ASIL-B/D Compliant 32-bit RISC-V Core
Related News
- 4i2i, an Aberdeen technology company, takes leap into space after securing deal with NASA
- Fault tolerant LEON3 processor licensed for new space missions
- Sigma Space Picks DapTechnology's FireLink 1394b IP Core for NASA R&D Project
- Atmel Introduces the AT697F Radiation-Hardened SPARC V8 Processor for Space Missions
Latest News
- CAST Releases First Dual LZ4 and Snappy Lossless Data Compression IP Core
- Arteris Wins “AI Engineering Innovation Award” at the 2025 AI Breakthrough Awards
- SEMI Forecasts 69% Growth in Advanced Chipmaking Capacity Through 2028 Due to AI
- eMemory’s NeoFuse OTP Qualifies on TSMC’s N3P Process, Enabling Secure Memory for Advanced AI and HPC Chips
- AIREV and Tenstorrent Unite to Launch Advanced Agentic AI Stack