March 26, 2024, SANTA CLARA, Calif. & FRAMINGHAM, Mass.– FPGA technology company Achronix Semiconductor Corporation and Bluespec, Inc., a RISC-V tools and silicon IP company, today announced a family of Linux-capable RISC-V soft processors that are available for the Achronix Speedster7t FPGA family.
Marking an industry first, Bluespec’s RISC-V processors now integrate into the Achronix 2D network-on-chip (NoC) architecture, simplifying integration and enabling engineers to add processing to their Achronix FPGA designs easily.
Bluespec’s RISC-V soft-core family adds software programmability to Speedster7t FPGA designs, simplifying system integration, increasing designers’ productivity, and reducing time-to-market. The 2D NoC in Achronix Speedster7t FPGAs allows for easily integrating one or more RISC-V cores into the FPGA fabric. The 2D NoC allows multiple instances of the RISC-V core to be added and easily relocated to different areas of the FPGA fabric while maintaining performance. Developers have the flexibility to run C/C++ applications on bare metal or operating systems on hardware subsystems, with one to eight 64-bit processors individually configured with floating point instructions, custom instructions, and hardware accelerators.
Each processor’s accelerator ports enable memory management and software-driven configuration and control for high-bandwidth workload accelerators, speeding up the development and deployment of Speedster7t FPGA designs. Since developers can use proven and familiar technologies—including RISC-V, Linux, RTOS, and software multi-threading—this capability further accelerates the design process by minimizing learning curves.
“The Achronix Speedster7t FPGAs deliver powerful innovations such as the 2D NoC, allowing high-speed data transport and connectivity up to 20 Tbps of bandwidth. With the addition of Bluespec’s acceleration-ready RISC-V soft cores, the Achronix Speedster7t FPGAs can become full-fledged programmable SoCs,” said Charlie Hauck, CEO at Bluespec. “Our portfolio is designed to help developers speed up deployment time, and we look forward to seeing how our solutions help accelerate the adoption of RISC-V across different applications.”
“Bluespec’s deep expertise in silicon IP and long history of RISC-V innovation makes the company an ideal partner for Achronix,” said Nick Ilyadis, Vice President of Product Planning at Achronix. “The company’s Linux-capable RISC-V soft processors, paired with our high-performance and high-density FPGAs, help our customers differentiate their products and get to market faster.”
