Akeana Unveils a Triple-Threat RISC-V Lineup, From IoT Microcontrollers to AI Powerhouse Cores
Whether you need a 2GHz microcontroller or a 3GHz out-of-order 64-bit high-performance core with AI acceleration, Akeana has you covered.
RISC-V processor startup Akeana has come out of stealth with the announcement of three processor IP ranges, ranging from Akeana 100 Series 32-bit microcontroller cores to Akeana 5000 Series "extreme performance processor" targeting the data center and more.
"Our team has a proven track record of designing world-class server chips, and we are now applying that expertise to the broader semiconductor market as we formally go to market," claims Rabin Sugumar, Akeana's chief executive officer. "With our rich portfolio of customizable cores and special security, debug, RAS, and telemetry features, we provide our customers with unparalleled performance, observability, and reliability. We believe our products will revolutionize the industry."
Founded around the same team as was responsible for designing the ThunderX2 server chips at Marvell, Akeana's grand launch covers three core product lines. The first is the Akeana 100 Series, 32-bit RISC-V cores, which are designed to be configurable from low-power microcontroller use-cases up through edge gateways and energy-efficient personal computing devices, with a 2GHz maximum frequency and between 4 and 9.5 CoreMarks per megahertz (CoreMark/MHz).
For those who require more power, the Akeana 1000 Series jumps to 64-bit with the addition of a memory management unit (MMU) to enable Linux compatibility. The application-class cores can be configured for in-order or out-of-order execution, the company says, and include optional multithreading, vector acceleration, virtualization hypervisor, and "other extensions" — plus support for "optional AI [Artificial Intelligence] computation extensions." These, the company says, can go above 2GHz, and offer 5 to 18 SpecINT2k6s per gigahertz (SpecINT2k6/GHz).
Finally, the Akeana 5000 Series sits at the top end of the company's offers delivering "extreme performance processors," which Akeana claims can outperform its rivals in both the RISC-V and broader processor segments. These 64-bit cores are designed for use in laptops, desktop, cloud servers, and more — and, the company says, are software-compatible with the Akeana 1000 Series but deliver a major boost in single-thread performance. This range tops out at 3GHz, with a boosted performance of 20 to 25 SpecINT2k6/GHz.
At the same time, Akeana has announced a range of IP blocks designed to help turn any of the above cores into a fully-functional system-on-chip, including a coherent cluster cache, input/output memory management unit (IOMMU), interrupt controller, and a scalable mesh and coherence hub for the creation of large coherent compute subsystems. An AI matrix computation engine, meanwhile, boosts on-device artificial intelligence and machine learning performance still further.
"The migration to RISC-V is in full flight," claims Mamoon Hamid, partner at Akeana investor Kleiner Perkins, in support of the company's launch. "The majority of top semiconductor firms are transitioning to RISC-V, with many choosing Akeana due to its best in class performance."
More information on the company's offerings are available on the Akeana website; the company has not yet announced design wins, nor a timescale on when the first physical hardware based on Akeana IP is expected to ship.