Microprocessors

Microchip has announced its first 64bit processors, picking the RISC-V instruction set for the initial parts: an octa-core for space and a industrial quad-core. Although, “future PIC64 families will include devices based on RISC-V or Arm architectures”, said the company. PIC64-HPSC is the family name of the space processors, which have come out of a 2022 deal with NASA to ...

At DAC 2024, Efabless celebrated a milestone of 40 commercial companies designed chips using its chipIgnite and Google-sponsored OpenMPW programme. Of these, some are ready for production volumes, the majority are at the prototype/proof of concept stage, said CEO, Michael Wishart. The platform allows start-ups and smaller companies to prototype designs and innovate without having to buy a license, he ...

SiFive announced the 4th generation of RISC-V CPU cores for embedded applications at RISC-V Summit Europe 2024 today. There are eight cores, three of which are 32bit while the other five are 64bit. To trade performance against power and area, their pipelines will span two-stage single-issue, to eight-stage dual-issue – see the table below. They are all covered by the ...

Alif Semiconductor has removed the Bluetooth transceiver from its Balletto B1 microcontroller to create an MCU with (or without) 46Gop/s of neural network processing that will be available in packages as small as a 3.9 x 3.9mm 90bump WLCSP. Dubbed E1C, the family all get a single 160MHz Arm Cortex-M55 CPU with Helium vector processing extensions, then some will also ...

The growing interest in exploring modular hardware instead of a traditional chip-down approach requires an understanding of the pros and cons of each approach, say James Jaksich and Camron Chilton. There are five key benefits of a system-on-module (som) approach, which will help engineers through the make vs buy decision process. Flexibility Standards defining size, connectors and interfaces play a ...

At Computex 2024, Intel has revealed details of its Lunar Lake architecture for AI PC processors. It has been designed for power efficiency compute performance in ‘thin and light’ PC models. The processors include Performance-cores (P-cores) and Efficient-cores (E-cores) for energy efficiency and AI compute performance. They also have a fourth generation neural processing unit with up to 48TOPs of ...

Ambarella has announced a pair of 5nm AI camera processors for  in-vehicle fleet telematics. “CV75AX provides up to 2x the AI performance over Ambarella’s prior-generation SoC, enabling the latest transformer neural networks for improved accuracy and reduced false positives without having to train for every object. [It] also provides the AI horsepower for more complex driver-scoring models,” according to the ...

SiPearl has revealed some details of its AI microprocessor. Rhea1, as it will be called, “will fulfill the mission entrusted by EuroHPC JU and the European Processor Initiative consortium: to bring dedicated high-performance microprocessor technologies back to Europe”, according to the company. The plan is for it to have 80 Arm Neoverse V1 cores, each with two 256bit SVEs (scalable vector ...

Infineon has introduced microcontrollers for monitoring vehicle Pb-acid batteries, that can be powered directly from the battery and include a pair of high-accuracy ADCs. Operation is over 3.6 to 28V, with reduced function up to 42V, and the drvices have been developed with functional safety in mind. “The device is developed compliant to ISO 26262, meeting all process requirements for ...

Microchip has announced its most secure 32bit microcontrollers – a series of 120MHz Cortex-M33 MCUs for connected things. “Emerging requirements make security mandatory for the majority of IoT connected devices,” said Micrchip v-p Rod Drake, claiming: “The PIC32CK makes it cost effective to provide hardware-based security to mid-range microcontroller applications.” That said, security does not come with every PIC32CK MCU ...