https://www.anandtech.com/show/16780/intel-to-create-riscv-development-platform-with-sifive-p550-cores-on-7nm-in-2022 [p] [logo2] [ ] [search] Welcome Log out Login Register [icon-twitt] [icon-faceb] [icon-rss] * ABOUT * BENCH * FORUMS * PODCAST [logo_resp] [ ] [search] ABOUT BENCH FORUMS PODCAST LOGIN REGISTER PC ComponentsV * CPUs * GPUs * Motherboards * SSDs * Cases/Cooling/PSUs * Memory * NAS * Storage Smartphones & tabletsV * Smartphones * Tablets * Huawei * HTC * Samsung * Google/Android * Microsoft * Apple * SoCs SystemsV * Notebook Reviews * Desktop Reviews * Mac Reviews * Ultrabooks ENTERPRISE & IT GUIDESV * Best CPUs * Best SSDs * Best Laptops * Best Android Phones * Best Video Cards * Best PSUs * Best Motherboards * Best Gaming Laptops * Best Mechanical Keyboards * Best Consumer HDDs DEALS * Home> SoCs [ ] Menu * PC ComponentsV + CPUs + GPUs + Motherboards + SSDs + Cases/Cooling/PSUs + Memory + NAS + Storage * Smartphones & tabletsV + Smartphones + Tablets + Huawei + HTC + Samsung + Google/Android + Microsoft + Apple + SoCs * SystemsV + Notebook Reviews + Desktop Reviews + Mac Reviews + Ultrabooks * Enterprise & IT * GuidesV + Best CPUs + Best SSDs + Best Laptops + Best Android Phones + Best Video Cards + Best PSUs + Best Motherboards + Best Gaming Laptops + Best Mechanical Keyboards + Best Consumer HDDs * Deals * TRENDING TOPICS * CPUs * AMD * Intel * GPUs * Motherboards * Storage * Mobile * SSDs * Asus * Home> * SoCs Intel to Create RISC-V Development Platform with SiFive P550 Cores on 7nm in 2022 by Dr. Ian Cutress on June 22, 2021 9:01 AM EST * Posted in * SoCs * CPUs * Intel * SiFive * RISC-V * 7nm * SiFive P550 * Intel 7nm 27 Comments | Add A Comment 27 Comments + Add A Comment [SIF21x9_67] As part of SiFive's announcements today, along with enabling SiFive IP on Intel's Foundry Service offerings, Intel will be creating its own RISC-V development platform using its 7nm process technology. This platform, called Horse Creek, will feature several of SiFive's new Performance P550 cores also being announced today, and will be paired with Intel's DDR and PCIe IP technology. [06222021-S] On first reading into the press release, it isn't 100% clear that Intel's commentary discusses a platform with P550 as a host or as an add-in device: to quote Intel, 'We are pleased to be a lead development partner with SiFive to showcase to mutual customers the impressive performance of their P550 on our 7nm Horse Creek platform' . Intel historically typically keeps its Creek family names, such as Boulder Creek, Cherry Creek, or Timber Creek, for socketed platforms - not for all-in-one embedded development platforms. Not only that, the wording makes it sound like we should consider a RISC-V core as an assistant core managing another part of a system. However it would appear that Intel intends to make this a fully-featured development system, along similar lines to SiFive's own HiFive Unmatched platform launched early this year. What makes this special is that Intel is committing to developing the SoC on its own 7nm process node, which provides a 'simpler' vehicle for Intel to test and ramp up its 7nm technology. This can be coupled with increasing interest in RISC-V development, and deploying a platform though Intel's supply chain and distribution might have a far reach to put these in the hands of upcoming developers. The new SiFive Performance P550 core at the heart of Horse Creek is SiFive's highest performance processor to date, with the company quoting a SPEC2006int of 8.65 per GHz. It is a Linux-capable core, with full support for the RISC-V vector extension v1.0rc. It has a 13-stage triple-issue out-of-order microarchitecture with a private 32KB+32KB L1 cache and a private L2 cache (per core) The design supports four cores in a single cluster that can be paired up to 4 MB of shared L3. [06222021-S] The time scale for this platform coming to market is quite interesting. Despite Intel recently committed to bringing its 7nm to market in 2023 with the compute tile for its Meteor Lake processor as its first 7nm product, we're being told that Horse Creek silicon will be ready in 2022, which would make Horse Creek its first 7nm product. For what it is worth, it's unlikely that the Intel RISC-V solution is tile-based, but it might be easy enough to bring a small RISC-V chip development platform to market around then. The chip is likely to be small, so that might work in favor of its costs as well. A question does remain as to whether Intel's involvement here is purely in the hardware, or whether there will be an Intel-based software stack to go along with it. Related Reading * Samsung to Use SiFive RISC-V Cores for SoCs, Automotive, 5G Applications * SiFive Announces First RISC-V OoO CPU Core: The U8-Series Processor IP * SiFive Acquires USB 2.0 and 3.x IP Portfolio to Strengthen RISC-V SoCs * SiFive Unveils Freedom Platforms for RISC-V-Based Semi-Custom Chips * Western Digital's RISC-V "SweRV" Core Design Released For Free Tweet PRINT THIS ARTICLE * Post Your Comment [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Please log in or sign up to comment. [ ] [Submit Comment] [ajax-loade] POST A COMMENT 27 Comments View All Comments * SarahKerrigan - Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - link Considering the comparison point is Cortex-A75, this still puts top-end RV apps cores a long way behind top-end ARM licensables. But they certainly seem to be improving. Also, Doc Ian, it looks like in the last paragraph you refer to Horse Creek as Horse Ridge, which is a very different product (quantum control circuit.) I assume this is just a typo, since it's sorta baffling otherwise. Reply * Ian Cutress - Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - link I've written Horse Ridge so often, it's in my brain. Fixed that up. Reply * FreckledTrout - Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - link Schrodinger's Horse :) Reply * eastcoast_pete - Wednesday, June 23, 2021 - link Doesn't help that some will now say that Intel's future is indeed "up the creek (s)". Reply * eastcoast_pete - Wednesday, June 23, 2021 - link Although the RV "performance core" appears to be much closer to ARM's LITTLE cores in size/area/transistor count. And, unlike them, it's OOO, something ARM has been resistant to implementing even in their newest designs. Reply * Small Bison - Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - link "The new SiFive Performance P550 core at the heart of Horse Creek is SiFive's highest performance processor to date, with the company quoting a SPEC2006int of 8.65 per GHz." How does this compare against other common CPU designs? I think it would be useful to have that info in the article. Reply * SarahKerrigan - Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - link Sifive is saying the comparison point is the Cortex-A75. That makes it fairly fast by the standard of apps processors as a whole, but far behind current ARM licensable IP or mainstream cores from Intel, AMD, or Apple. Reply * brucehoult - Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - link Four years and one month behind A75 announcement, to be precise. The U84 was announced 4.75 years after the A72. The U74 was announced 6 years after the A53. So far, each generation of SiFive cores is about one less year behind ARM than the previous one. Remembering that SiFive was founded after the A72 was announced. Reply * Ian Cutress - Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - link We've been publishing graphs with this data for a while. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon... https://www.anandtech.com/show/16214/amd-zen-3-ryz... A13 scores 19.85/GHz A14 scores 21.1/GHz R9 5950X scores 13.57/GHz i9-10900K scores 11.08/GHz P550 is probably peak score/GHz, whereas all of these points are at the most extreme/least efficient point for the high-end products. The overall performance also matters when you factor in frequency, as cores won't scale linearly with core frequency as other parts of the SoC will be fixed. Reply * brucethemoose - Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - link I wonder if cloud vendors would be interested in a giant package stuffed full of these cores? Small, isolated VMs don't need tons of core-cluster to core-cluster communication. I understand this design probably can't do that... and if there was interest, I suppose Altera or someone would've come out with a design based on smaller ARM cores. Reply * 1 * 2 * 3 * > PIPELINE STORIES + Submit News AT Deals: LG Ultragear 144Hz IPS Monitor Drops to $296 at Amazon [dell_revea] Seagate Announces FireCuda 530 PCIe 4.0 SSD at SG21 Intel to Create RISC-V Development Platform with SiFive P550 Cores on 7nm in 2022 * Intel Licenses SiFive's Portfolio for Intel Foundry Services on 7nm * AMD Moves GCN 1, 2, & 3-based GPUs and APUs To Legacy; Also Drops Win7 Support * GlobalFoundries To Build New 450K Wafer-per-Year Fab in Singapore * DIY on Intel Ice Lake Xeon Just Got A Little Closer * Best AMD Motherboards: June 2021 * Google Announces AMD Milan-based Cloud Instances - Out with SMT vCPUs? * Sponsored Post: How COVID-19 Has Created a Hyper-Visual Future * SPEC Updates SERT Suite for ISO-Compliant Server Energy Efficiency Benchmarking * Razer Announces Ultra-Compact "Razer GaN" 130W USB Type-C Charger TWEETS [twiiter_bi] * andreif7: @JumboShrimp787 I completely messed up those figures when copying the tables - I changed it to be correct. * RyanSmithAT: @MarkNelsenKPTV Oh cool, that is good news. I'm glad to hear that they're not wasting time in replacing poor GOES-1... https://t.co/CshK2Bb4Ax * andreif7: @never_released Them baselining for v8.1 atomics is smart. * RyanSmithAT: @ijx092 @IanCutress I wouldn't put much faith in MS's CPU lists. They don't list Haswell processors as being suppor... https://t.co/HEOkqvvYoV * RyanSmithAT: @aschilling One way or another, I expect there will be some kind of way around the TPM requirement, if only because... https://t.co/jOPKrAkmac * RyanSmithAT: @jkampman @IanCutress Interesting. You obviously have access to a lot more mobos than I do. Though that would mean... https://t.co/DMdmWlujFV * RyanSmithAT: Which does mean you'll have to find the esoteric setting needed to turn it on (and trust that software vendors won'... https://t.co/SCqP1sVGLe * IanCutress: EE in Jan: no new Europe charges EE in June: lol nope suckers Why do so many u turns @MarcAllera? We see you. Almo... https://t.co/b1EL2co9Mz * ganeshts: @ricswi Looks like that requirement is Home-only. Other editions will still allow local accounts. I can't remember... https://t.co/qOvPnduAuY * IanCutress: @NBroekhuijsen Because I immediately recycle the ones I no longer need, but if I go back to selling the case, I no... https://t.co/npwMIK72nm * IanCutress: Aha! That's still a sizeable jump in core vs memory. Perhaps you need to see how IO power scales as memory speed ri... https://t.co/TOSPJhv4AO * IanCutress: @SemiNewsByDylan @intel Intel has always been cagey about DPG and XPG since XPG was formed * IanCutress: Speaking with Aart was really fun. It's clear he understands its more about the tools, but also the economics and t... https://t.co/mD7n8pbTSf * andreif7: @Cat_Merc Aye * andreif7: 16 core Milan 190W == 28 core ICL-X 205W * andreif7: @ChipsandCheese9 I don't really use the C->C test for performance and more as a structural layout map of the chips,... https://t.co/iSAqqjG5An * ganeshts: @Laughing_Man @hnpn914 Benson, is there an update planned for the Twinkie PD to support EPR? I still use the USBC-T... https://t.co/D6g5nmQvB5 * ganeshts: @bdmurdock Not aware of a standard way, but I have seen simulator wrapper scripts with a `timeout' prefix. Also o... https: //t.co/aIgUTOeXcx * ganeshts: @mikeev @BrettHowse @IanCutress For games, a combination of Powershell + (WinAppDriver / AutoHotKey) works, but it... https://t.co/Fhh8j0VZLa * ganeshts: @mikeev @BrettHowse @IanCutress I use Perl & Python on RHEL for my primary work, and Powershell for all AnandTech-r... https://t.co/7uCllPz9T3 Follow @ANANDTECH [twitter_do] LINKS * Home * About * Forums * RSS * Pipeline News * Bench * Terms of Use * Contact Us TOPICS * CPUs * Motherboards * SSD/HDD * GPUs * Mobile * Enterprise & IT * Smartphones * Memory * Cases/Cooling/PSU(s) * Displays * Mac * Systems * Cloud * Trade Shows * Guides FOLLOW * [icon-faceb]Facebook * [icon-twitt]Twitter * [icon-rss2]RSS The Most Trusted in Tech Since 1997 * About * Advertising * Privacy Policy purch Copyright (c) 2021. 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