SiFive, Inc., a pioneering force in RISC-V computing, has unveiled a pair of groundbreaking products to cater to the ever-growing demands of high-performance computing. The new SiFive PerformanceTM P870 and SiFive IntelligenceTM X390 are poised to revolutionize low-power, compute density, and vector computing capabilities. These two products, when combined, offer an essential performance boost for data-intensive computing, opening new possibilities in a range of sectors, including consumer electronics, automotive, and infrastructure.
The announcement took center stage at a live press and analyst event in Santa Clara on October 11, where SiFive also provided updates on various product lines already in the hands of customers worldwide. Company executives shared insights into SiFive's product roadmap and emphasized the rapid expansion of the RISC-V ecosystem in response to the increasing demand for high-performance computing solutions based on RISC-V architecture.
Patrick Little, SiFive's Chairman, President, and CEO, expressed their commitment to pushing the boundaries of high-performance RISC-V innovation, narrowing the gap with other instruction set architectures, and demonstrating the immense potential of SiFive RISC-V solutions through recent silicon tape-outs. He stated, "The demand for semiconductors across multiple sectors is growing rapidly, especially in the consumer and infrastructure markets. SiFive's flexible RISC-V solutions empower companies to address the unique computing needs of these segments and capitalize on the momentum around generative AI and cutting-edge applications."
The SiFive Performance P870: A Game-Changer in Consumer and Datacenter Computing
The SiFive Performance P870 is tailor-made for high-performance consumer applications or can be used in tandem with a vector processor in data centers. It sets an impressive new benchmark in RISC-V performance in terms of instruction set availability, throughput, parallelism, and memory bandwidth. Featuring a 50% peak single-thread performance upgrade (specINT2k6) over previous SiFive Performance processors, the P870 boasts a six-wide out-of-order core that complies with RVA 23 and offers a shared cluster cache, supporting up to a 32-core cluster. The P870 achieves high execution throughput with more instructions per cycle, additional ALU, and branch units. Moreover, it is fully compatible with Google's platform requirements for Android on RISC-V and includes features such as 128-bit VLEN RVV, vector crypto, and hypervisor extensions, IOMMU and AIA, a non-inclusive L3 cache, and proven RISC-V WorldGuard security.
The SiFive Intelligence X390: A Leap in AI and ML Applications
Building on the success of the SiFive Intelligence X280, which combined AI/ML applications with hardware accelerators in mobile, infrastructure, and automotive sectors, the X390 takes vector computation to new heights. With a single-core configuration, doubled vector length, and dual vector ALUs, the X390 offers quadruple sustained data bandwidth. The SiFive Vector Coprocessor Interface eXtension (VCIX) adds unrivaled flexibility, enabling companies to incorporate their own vector instructions and acceleration hardware for enhanced performance. Key features of the X390 include a 1024-bit VLEN, 512-bit DLEN, single/dual vector ALU, and VCIX (2048-bit out, 1024-bit in).
An Agile Hardware Solution for Generative AI Applications
Combining the high-performance general compute SoC of the P870 with a high-performance NPU cluster, consisting of the X390 and customer AI hardware engines, offers product designers a versatile, energy-efficient, and programmable solution with exceptional compute density for complex workloads. SiFive highlighted strong interest in these integrated solutions, with several customers achieving silicon success and progressing toward commercialization using high-performance products.
SiFive remains actively engaged with partners across the ecosystem, ensuring that the software, security, and flexibility benefits of the open standard ecosystem are readily available for SiFive processors as companies transition to commercialize their SiFive-powered products.
