California: SiFive unveils RISC-V based AI accelerator

RISC-V chipmaker SiFive has announced a new series of AI accelerators for high-performance workloads including its  Intelligence XM Series which it claims is the first IP to include a scalable matrix engine, designed to accelerate time-to-market for semiconductor companies building system-on-chip solutions for Edge, IoT, and data centers.

Patrick Little, CEO of SiFive, said: “Many companies are seeing the benefits of an open processor standard while they race to keep up with the rapid pace of change with AI. AI plays to SiFive’s strengths with performance per watt and our unique ability to help customers customize their solutions. We’re already supplying our RISC-V solutions to five of the ‘Magnificent 7’ companies (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla), and as companies pivot to a ‘software first’ design strategy we are working on new AI solutions with a wide variety of companies from automotive to data center and the intelligent Edge and IoT.”

“RISC-V was originally developed to efficiently support specialized computing engines including mixed-precision operations,” said Krste Asanovic, SiFive founder and chief architect. “This, coupled with the inclusion of efficient vector instructions and the support of specialized AI extensions, are the reasons why many of the largest data center companies have already adopted RISC-V AI accelerators.”