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Andes Technology Expands RISC-V High-End Processor Capabilities

December 17, 2019 by Luke James
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Andes Technology Corporation’s new 8-stage superscalar processor balances high performance, power efficiency, and real-time determinism with RISC-V.

Andes Technology Corporation, a global leader in RISC-V CPU solutions, recently announced its new AndesCore 45-series CPU

The company’s new CPU is equipped with an efficient superscalar pipeline that addresses a wide range of high-performance, power-sensitive, and real-time embedded systems. These include 5G, expected to launch in 2020, alongside in-vehicle infotainment, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and solid-state disks (SSDs). 

It is expected that the new 45-series CPU will become available to the first batch of customers in Q1 2020. 

 

Andes Technology commercial building in Taiwan.

Andes Technology commercial building in Taiwan. Image Credit: Andes Technology.

 

8-Stage Pipeline Performance for RISC-V

At the top of the line of 45-series CPUs, the AX45 core can operate at a clock frequency of up to 1.2GHz at 28nm. Initially available in the 45-series will be the 32-bit (A45/D45/N45) and 64-bit (AX45/DX45/NX45) CPUs. 

The A45 and AX45 support Linux and can be scaled up to four cores while the D45 and DX45 support RISC-V packed SIMD/DSP instructions, and the N45 and NX45 support RTOS. All 45-series cores use an 8-stage, dual-issue superscalar pipeline that incorporates error correction, feature IEEE754-compliance, and single or double precision FPU.

In the 45-series, branch prediction improves performance with minimal power consumption and a Memory Management Unit (MMU) with configurable table sizes allows the A45 and AX45 to run Linux operating systems that are fully supported by RISC-V.

Existing Andes features that are supported include:

  • PowerBrake

  • QuickNap

  • WFI for power saving

  • StackSafe for stack under/overflow protection

  • CoDense for code density enhancement

  • Andes Custom Extension for user-defined instructions 

Processors used in the 45-series are being tuned for real-time embedded applications. As we mentioned above, these include 5G, IVI, ADAS, and SSDs. The 45-series will be released alongside an ecosystem partner with solutions already enabled for security, hardware debug, and system-level modeling. 

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