Collaboration Leading The Way For Broad RISC-V Adoption

We recently announced a partnership with Intel as part of the launch of the Intel Pathfinder for RISC-V, making leading RISC-V technology more accessible for prototyping, production design or research purposes using Intel FPGAs.

Intel Pathfinder for RISC-V allows for a variety of RISC-V cores and other IP to be instantiated on FPGA platforms, with the ability to run industry-leading operating systems and toolchains within a unified IDE. By providing a common environment for accessing RISC-V and peripheral IP, Intel is enabling SoC architects and system designers to assemble and test different IP combinations in a single environment.

The launch of the Intel Pathfinder for RISC-V program is an attestation of the commitment to RISC-V from the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturer, and it serves as tangible evidence of what has been expected to happen: the RISC-V ecosystem is maturing rapidly.

Leaping forward together

The ecosystem around RISC-V is still young and have in some ways been considered too scattered, too immature. But so far in 2022, the ecosystem has taken a number of huge leaps forward. For example, Intel made a series of announcements at the beginning of the year and additional semiconductor companies have joined as members of RISC-V International. At Embedded World 2022, Max Maxfield of EE Journal was impressed by the amount of activity generated by the RISC-V ecosystem, he explains why in the article “RISC-V Takes Embedded World 2022 by Storm.”

Even with all the interest around RISC-V, there have not been that many straightforward solutions available for evaluating and getting hands-on experience from complete systems including cores and peripherals from different vendors in the rich RISC-V ecosystem. Through the collaboration between vendors in the Intel Pathfinder for RISC-V program, SoC designers and system developers can now easily explore different configurations and combinations of IP, including Codasip’s L31 core, in a single environment.

Enabling a brave new world

The award-winning L31 core is a small, efficient 32-bit embedded RISC-V processor core aimed at low-power AI/ML applications such as IoT edge devices. With a 3-stage pipeline, 32 general-purpose registers, and support for Google’s TensorFlowLite for Microcontrollers, the core is designed to support challenging tasks such as neural networks even in the smallest, power-constrained applications.

Our L31 core along with the Intel Pathfinder for RISC-V program lets you kickstart your next RISC-V project and start exploring options. Once you have found a good setup for your design, you can move into production by licensing from Codasip the same off-the-shelf L31 core that you evaluated through the program. This standard core can match your needs, but you could also customize it to fit your unique, specific application. IoT edge devices are typically resource-constrained and there is much to gain from customizing the core for the specific application requirements. The customization can be managed in a very straightforward way using Codasip Studio, a unique collection of tools for automated design or modification of processors.

The openness of RISC-V offers unique potential for innovation and customization. Intel’s evaluation platform, co-developed with leading RISC-V vendors like Codasip, will certainly increase the rate of RISC-V adoption. As a founding member of RISC-V International, Codasip can only applaud the initiative. A brave new world of heterogenous computing and domain-specific accelerators is open for exploration. Try it and see for yourself! Go to pathfinder.intel.com to start exploring.