Creativeness Goes After Linux and Android Good Gadgets with Its New Catapult APXM-6200 RISC-V CPU

Creativeness Applied sciences has introduced a brand new entry in its Catapult vary of licensable soft-core CPUs constructed across the free and open supply RISC-V structure: the “performance-dense” APXM-6200.

“Creativeness removes the boundaries for corporations seeking to profit from RISC-V primarily based designs,” Creativeness’s Shreyas Derashri claims of the corporate’s newest launch. “We’re closely investing within the open-source software program ecosystem in order that when APXM-6200 ships in silicon, the software program stacks can be out there and performant.

“On the {hardware} facet, our engineering staff follows a rigorous design and verification course of, perfected over Creativeness’s thirty years’ expertise of designing and supporting complicated semiconductor IP, to make sure that Catapult CPUs are of the very best high quality and constructed with buyer satisfaction in thoughts.”

Creativeness introduced the Catapult RISC-V CPU household again in December 2021, 4 years after it had exited the market with the sale of its MIPS division in 2017 — a spin-off that has since introduced its personal adoption of the RISC-V structure, instead of the similarly-RISC however proprietary structure which bears its identify. The primary industrial core within the Catapult vary, the 32-bit RTXM-2200, adopted in June 2022, tailor-made for real-time workloads.

This time, the corporate is specializing in performance-focused application-class workloads. The APXM-6200 is an 11-stage dual-issue pipeline design that implements the 64-bit RV64I model of the RISC-V structure, delivering what the corporate claims is “a 65 per cent enchancment in normalized efficiency and a 2.5x enchancment in normalized efficiency density in comparison with equal CPUs already in the marketplace.”

The core can be usable in single-, dual-, and quad-core configurations, the corporate has confirmed, and contains the ratified model of the RISC-V vector and vector cryptographic extensions for improved efficiency with machine studying and synthetic intelligence (ML and AI) workloads.

On the software program entrance, Creativeness has mentioned the core is “Android and Linux prepared,” although has not detailed whether or not this represents mainstream releases of each or vendor-specific personalized variations. The cores will seemingly discover a dwelling, the corporate hopes, in sensible TVs, digital signage, and sensible dwelling techniques — and might be paired with certainly one of Creativeness’s licensable GPU designs for such duties.

“Creativeness has proven management each inside the RISC-V neighborhood and throughout the trade with dedication to bringing compelling improvements to market,” says RISC-V Worldwide chief government officer Calista Redmond in assist of the corporate’s launch. “Creativeness’s strategic funding in RISC-V is a improbable instance of the distinctive design potential that solely RISC-V presents by a set of modular customary specs along with proprietary differentiation.”

Extra data on the Catapult household is accessible on the RISC-V web site, whereas the corporate has confirmed it is going to be showcasing the brand new core throughout Embedded World in Nuremberg this week in Corridor 4, Sales space #4-659. It has but, nonetheless, to call any design wins or set a schedule for the core’s look in industrial silicon.