Technology 2 min read

Alibaba Unveils RISC-V Processor Chip for High-Performance Applications

Maxx-Studio / Shutterstock.com

Maxx-Studio / Shutterstock.com

Pingtouge, a subsidiary of the Chinese eCommerce giant Alibaba, has unveiled its first product at the Alibaba Cloud Conference in Shanghai. It’s a RISC-V processor chip that’s ideal for high-performance applications.

The company is calling it Xuantie 910 RISC-V.

According to Pingtouge, the 16-core Xuantie 910 attains 7.1 core mark/MHz at a 2.4GHz frequency and on a 12nm process node. This makes the new processor 40 percent more powerful than any RISC-V processor till date.

Two things are responsible for the impressive performance of the processor.

One, the company added 50 extended instructions to enhance various arithmetic operations, including multicore capabilities and memory access. Then, there’s its 12-stage pipelined out-of-order triple issue processor with two memory accesses per cycle

With that said, don’t expect to see it on simple devices such as home appliances.

Pingtouge reportedly has high-performance computing plans for its new chip. These include autonomous vehicles, AI, 5G, networking, and edge server.

Not only would the processor double the performance of chips, but it could also slash their price by half too.

The Sanction-Proof RISC-V

RISC-V is an open-source hardware instruction set architecture (ISA) that are based on reduced instruction set computer (RISC) principles.

Stewart Randall of TechNode wrote:

“The RISC-V Foundation, which promotes the ISA’s use, features leading global players including Microchip, Western Digital, Google, Nvidia, and Qualcomm, to name just a few. Through collaborative and independent projects, several members are working to create RISC-V based designs.”

In the wake of recent trade sanctions, the RISC-V remains at an advantage.

It’s ISA documentation, software stacks, and CPU cores are already all over the internet. As such, it’s too late to cut that knowledge off, making the processor immune to trade restrictions.

According to reports, Alibaba does not intend to produce the processor itself. Instead, the e-commerce company would license it to chipmakers to monetize the processor’s intellectual property.

Also, the company said that it would release parts of related code on public repository GitHub. By sharing this data, the company hopes to encourage related development.

Read More: TOP500 Updates Semi-Annual List of World’s Most Powerful Supercomputers

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Sumbo Bello

Sumbo Bello is a creative writer who enjoys creating data-driven content for news sites. In his spare time, he plays basketball and listens to Coldplay.

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