How to Choose an Architecture for a Domain-Specific Processor

By _Codasip Blog

January 29, 2021

If you are going to create a domain-specific processor, one of the key activities is to choose an instruction set architecture (ISA) that matches your software needs. So where do you start?

Some companies have created their instruction sets from scratch, but if you have such an ISA, a penalty may be the costs of porting software. Today, the RISC-V open ISA can provide you with an excellent starting point and a software ecosystem. Depending on what you need, there are several obvious starting points. In case of a 32-bit processor, if you start with RISC‑V, the base ISA (RV32I) is just 47 instructions. Using this base set is easier than creating proprietary instructions with similar functionality, as well as meaning that software is already available from the RISC-V ecosystem.

Many use cases require multiplication suggesting that [M] extensions would be useful, and it is sensible to take advantage of the 16-bit compressed [C] instructions for code density, so it is commonplace to use the RV32IMC set which amount to 101 instructions. Using RISC-V as a starting point will ensure that it is straightforward to use common software such as an RTOS or protocol stack. If you additionally require floating point computation, then the RV32GC (G=IMAFD) instructions may be appropriate, additionally including atomic [A], single-precision floating point [F], and double-precision floating point [D] extensions. Even RV32GC only has 164 instructions.

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