Renesas Electronics Corporation Announces Development of 32-bit RISC-V CPU Core
Renesas Electronics Corporation, a leading provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, has announced the design and testing of a 32-bit CPU core based on the open-standard RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA). Renesas is one of the first companies in the industry to independently develop a CPU core for the 32-bit general-purpose RISC-V market, offering an open and flexible platform for IoT, consumer electronics, healthcare, and industrial systems. The new RISC-V CPU core will complement Renesas' existing portfolio of 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs), including the RX Family and the RA Family based on the Arm Cortex-M architecture.
RISC-V is an open ISA that is gaining popularity in the semiconductor industry due to its flexibility, scalability, power efficiency, and open ecosystem. While many MCU providers have formed alliances to accelerate the development of RISC-V products, Renesas has already developed its own RISC-V core. This versatile CPU can serve as a main application controller, a secondary core in SoCs, on-chip subsystems, or even in deeply embedded ASSPs. This positions Renesas as a leader in the emerging RISC-V market, following previous introductions of its voice-control and motor-control ASSP devices, as well as the RZ/Five 64-bit general-purpose microprocessors (MPUs) built on CPU cores developed by Andes Technology Corp.
"Renesas takes pride in offering embedded processing solutions for a wide range of customers and applications," said Daryl Khoo, Vice President of the IoT Platform Division at Renesas. "This new core extends our leadership in the RISC-V market and uniquely positions us to deliver solutions that meet diverse requirements."
"We congratulate Renesas on achieving this milestone in 32-bit RISC-V MCU architecture development," said Calista Redmond, CEO at RISC-V International. "This achievement demonstrates how RISC-V ecosystem partners, like Renesas, are driving RISC-V innovation. Our RISC-V community spans 70 countries with over 4,000 members, and we look forward to further innovations from this expanding market."
The Renesas RISC-V CPU achieves an impressive 3.27 CoreMark/MHz performance, surpassing similar architectures on the market. It includes extensions to enhance performance while reducing code size.
Renesas is currently sampling devices based on the new core to select customers and plans to launch its first RISC-V-based MCU and associated development tools in Q1 2024. Details of the new MCU will be announced at that time. For more information about RISC-V solutions, visit renesas.com/risc-v. Read a blog article about the new RISC-V CPU here.
