embedded world: SiFive unveils RISC-V development board

The board will be available for large-scale deployment through Arrow Electronics so developers around the world can test and develop new RISC-V applications which use AI and other cutting-edge technologies across different market segments.

With a quad-core SiFive Performance P550 processor, the HiFive Premier P550 is said to be the highest performance RISC-V development board in the industry, and the latest in the HiFive family.

Designed to meet the computing needs of modern workloads, the out-of-order P550 core delivers superior compute density and performance in an energy-efficient area footprint.

Furthermore, the modular design of the board, which includes a replaceable system-on-module( SOM) board, gives developers the flexibility they need to tailor their designs.

“The popularity of our development boards underscores the growth and maturity of theRISC-V ecosystem,” said Patrick Little (pictured), CEO and Chairman at SiFive. “The HiFive board has always been the ‘golde nreference ’RISC-V development platform. Building on this proven foundation with the new HiFive PremierP550, developers can take advantage of SiFive’s high-performance IP in a cost-efficient platform that will be available in volume, opening up unlimited possibilities for RISC-V innovation in AI applications and beyond.”

SiFive is collaborating with Canonical to ensure that developers can smoothly run Ubuntu on the new development board. Ubuntu, backed by Canonical, provides a commercial grade Linux distribution that is also free to use by innovators and developers.

The EswinEIC7700 SoC found on the board features a highperformance 64-bit three-issue,out-of-order, SiFiveRISC-VP550 core complex configured with four P550 cores,2 56KBL2 cache and 4MBL3 cache.

The SoC features a 2D/3D GPU, hardware video encoder/decoder, NPU, DSP, MIPI DSI, a security subsystem, an integrated high speed DDR5 memory controller, root complex PCI Express Gen 3 x4 and standard peripherals.

SiFive’s line up of development boards also includes the HiFive Unmateched Rev.B,whichi s available today.

To help streamline the development process, SiFive provides comprehensive documentation, software development kits,toolchains, utilities,and software ecosystem solutions for each SiFive RISC-V development board.

The HiFive Premier P550 is expected to be available through Arrow Electronics in July 2024.