Microprocessors

Ramon.Space has been selected for a UK Space Agency-backed programme to develop its NuComm onboard processor, designed for large-scale communication satellite constellations. The project is looking to innovate around onboard digital payloads. The company’s radiation-hardened processor will be used to deliver high-capacity, low-power programmable digital communication systems. NuComm According to the company, the modular, software-defined nature of the platform means ...

U-blox has created an all-band all-constellation precision GNSS receiver, a successor to its F9 IC with L6 reception and global precision coverage. X20, as it will be known, “addresses the current high-precision GNSS needs around the world, and its design is equipped to also handle new and emerging technologies and standards”, according to the company. “The platform is designed for ...

Renesas has expanded its R-Car family of driver assistance processors with lesser-performance additions to its V4 range – headlined by the two-year old V4H-7. With 34Top/s of AI processing, V4H-7 is aimed at Level 2+ and Level 3 automated driving, over-kill for Level 1 and Level 2 automation. The additions are: 27Top/s V4H-5 24Top/s V4H-3 17Top/s V4M-7 14Top/s V4M-5 11Top/s V4M-3 ...

Risc-V technology is beginning to make inroads into automotive architecture design, from electronic vehicles to self-driving, software-defined vehicles and V2X connectivity, explains Samuel Chiang. Since the 1980s the automotive industry has undergone an electrification revolution, with the electronic control unit (ECU) becoming the core of system control. Currently, the Electronic and Electrical Architecture (EEA) is decentralised, with each car having ...

ST  has joined Quintauris, the RISC-V facilitator, as its sixth shareholder alongside Bosch, Infineon, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP and Qualcomm. Quintauris was founded in December 2023 to advance the adoption of products based on RISC-V principles. This will include access to reference architectures, and assistance in the creation of versatile, cross-industry solutions. The initial core industry applications will be for the ...

SiFive has announced RISC-V core intellectual property for data centre processors. Called P870-D, it is an update of the non-data centre P870, with support added for AMBA CHI protocol. “By harnessing a standard CHI bus,” said SiFive, “the P870-D enables SiFive’s customers to scale up to 256 cores while harnessing industry-standard protocols including CXL [Compute Express Link] and CHI C2C [chip ...

Raspberry Pi’s RP2350, its second-generation microcontroller, will be available by the end of the year in flash-less and flash-inclusive forms, in two packages: RP2350A QFN60 no flash $0.80 RP2350B QFN80 no flash $0.90 RP2354A QFN60 2Mbyte flash $1.00 RP2354B QFN80 2Mbyte flash $1.10 QFN60 types are 7 x 7mm and have 30 GPIOs, QFN80 types are 10 x 10mm and ...

Raspberry Pi has announced its second microcontroller, the RP2350, adding two RISC-V cores alongside improved Arm cores, more ram, and security. Not initially available on its own (ETA pre-year-end), it will first ship as part of the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 single-board microcontroller (right) – which is the same 21 x 51mm size as the original Pico, and priced from ...

Intel has announced a discrete graphics processing unit, aimed at vehicles being shipped in 2025. ‘Arc Graphics for Automotive’, or A760A, has 28 of the company’s Xe GPU cores, 28 ray tracing units, 448 matrix engines (XMX) for AI and 448 vector engines. It will be software-compatible with the GPUs integrated into its software-defined-vehicle processors, and used as an add-on ...

Microchip Technology has announced a 32bit 200MHz version of its dsPIC33 series of DSP-heavy MCUs. dsPIC33A, as the family will be called, is aimed at fast closed-loop control of PSUs and motors. As with earlier dsPIC processors, the parts remain a combination of CPU and maths accelerator (‘DSP engine’), rather than a pure DSP architecture. In this fifth generation, the ...