Renesas It is one of many companies that are members of RISC-V International. Its membership is full of major companies like Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Western Digital, Infineon, and so on. All of these companies are not interested in following ISA for future chips based on ISA.
And that’s the example that Renesas followed, designing a new CPU based on it. ISA RISC-V 32 bit (RV32) And that has achieved a historic feat. It’s the first feature to receive a 3.27 CoreMark/Mhz score, which means more than just outstanding performance.
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Coremark/MHz It is a metric used to measure the performance of a processor or core in terms of the number of CoreMark operations it can perform per megahertz (MHz) of clock frequency. CoreMark is a benchmark developed by the Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) and Used to evaluate the performance of processor cores in embedded and embedded systems.
Essentially, CoreMark/MHz delivers A relative measure of a core’s processing performance.It allows for comparisons between different processor architectures and designs: the higher the CoreMark/MHz value, the more efficient the core is at performing processing tasks.
It is important to note that CoreMark is Synthetic Benchmark Designed to evaluate performance in specific applications. and results may not fully reflect actual performance. Additionally, different applications and workloads may have different performance impacts. Therefore, it is important to consider a variety of metrics and usage scenarios when evaluating processor performance.
As I mentioned, Renesas has announced that it has designed a RISC-V CPU core that is the first to use this ISA. 32 bit CPU, That is, with the RV32 instruction set, this CPU core is compatible with Renesas’s e2 studio integrated development environment (IDE) and is compatible with other third-party IDEs. For microcontrollers, RISC-V makes things easier for developers.
According to Renesas, the CPUs achieve performance at 3.27 coremark/MHzThis is superior to similar RISC-V architectures in this category. And there are other cores. There are other different architectures. However, from the topic of this blog We’re especially excited that it’s a RISC-V core because it’s an open ISA and is rapidly gaining popularity in the semiconductor industry. And several microcontroller vendors have formed investment partnerships to accelerate implementation. RISC-V product development
Previously, Renesas launched two CPUs developed by Andes Technology Company LimitedAs is the case with the R9A02G020, a simple application-specific microcontroller (ASSP or application-specific standard product) for motor control, and the R9A06G150 ASSP microcontroller for audio interfaces, both are RISC-based. V as well, but I didn’t design it myself. But it’s about the MCU.
Additionally, Renesas now introduces the family as well. RZ/Five 64-bit RISC-V microprocessor family It can run Linux and the RH850/U2B, an automotive System on Chip (SoC), will complement the company’s RISC-V-based inventory.
Renesas RISC-V CPU Specifications
for Technical specifications This Renesas RISC-V CPU should highlight the following:
- The new Renesas CPUs based on RISC-V are versatile for a variety of applications. And it is not as limited as in other cases. For example, it can be used with MCU, SoC, ASIC, AASP, etc. It is intended specifically for industry and for embedded or embedded applications.
- Performance is highly optimized in the design. Which is why it got those scores in the benchmarks. This CPU can run RV32 instructions as I said. Both I and E extensions are modular, which makes them suitable for general use.
- There are also other integrated RISC-V modules or extensions, such as M to improve multiplication and division operations, A extension to support atomic access for concurrency in RTOS-based systems, extensions. C that provides compatibility with 16-bit compressed instructions to save memory space and B which has advanced bit-manipulation capabilities.
- On the other hand, performance is also well taken care of. Not just efficiency This makes it suitable for low-consumption applications.
- The Stack Monitor Register system is integrated. This prevents stack memory overflows. Therefore, by avoiding these overflows, You can improve the health of the system. It will not fail due to these issues.
- There is also a Dynamic Branch Prediction Unit which improves code execution.
- Of course, there is also a JTAG debugging interface for efficient, complete, and fast debugging, making developers’ lives much easier.
- On the other hand, it consists of an ITU or Instruction Tracing Unit to provide developers with in-depth knowledge about the behavior of the system.
The Renesas e2 Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a software development tool used to program and debug applications on Renesas microcontrollers and microprocessors. This development environment provides a complete set of tools. The suite makes it easy to create, develop, and optimize software for Renesas devices, and the IDE includes support for a wide range of Renesas microcontrollers and microprocessors, helping developers work with a wide range of products. There is also a source code editor that provides features such as syntax highlighting. Autocomplete and easy navigation to make writing and understanding code easier. We must not forget the debugging tools which facilitate the process of debugging the code. It helps developers detect and fix errors in their programs. You also have a project management system to organize and manage software development projects efficiently. This includes configuring compilers, linkers, and other tools. related And it supports multiple programming languages such as C and C++ which are the most commonly used languages.
The new Renesas RISC-V CPU is also compatible with Renesas e2 Studio IDE And with various third-party IDEs to develop tools for this ecosystem, the built chips are also tested for both performance and functionality. So you get the final product tested. The launch is expected to be in early 2024, so we’ll see products using these chips. This will be very interesting and the RISC-V phenomenon seems as unstoppable in the hardware world as Linux once was on the software side…