SiFive Raises RISC-V Performance Bar with New Best-in-Class SiFive Performance P650 Processor

The SiFive Performance P650 processor is expected to be the fastest licensable RISC-V processor IP core in the market, bringing RISC-V into new markets and applications, and will debut to lead partners in Q1 2022

SiFive, Inc., the founder and leader of RISC-V computing, announced the availability of the SiFive Performance P650 processor, the new range-topping member of the SiFive Performance family, which is expected to be the fastest licensable RISC-V processor IP core in the market. The SiFive Performance P650 will enable RISC-V designs for performance-demanding application processor markets from data center to edge, automotive, compute, mobile and more.

“With the new SiFive Performance P650 processor, SiFive’s engineering team has rapidly and successfully delivered a significant performance uplift for the SiFive processor family”

“SiFive’s mission is to answer the semiconductor industry’s call for more processor IP choices. SiFive is singularly focused on bringing innovative processor technology based on the RISC-V architecture to market,” said Dr. Yunsup Lee, co-founder and CTO, SiFive. “Since the announcement of the Performance Series of RISC-V cores earlier this year, SiFive has continued to push the limits of what was previously possible with RISC-V. The SiFive Performance P650 processor IP represents our commitment towards relentless execution, delivering significant performance improvements in record time. This announcement is the next step towards our long-term vision of bringing RISC-V processors to all performance-hungry applications.”

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The SiFive Performance P650 processor builds upon the SiFive Performance P550 processor, maintaining an efficient core pipeline while expanding the processor instruction-issue width to deliver an impressive 40% performance increase per clock cycle¹. Additional architecture enhancements improve maximum clock frequency, achieving an overall 50% performance gain compared to SiFive’s previous fastest processor. With a projected score of 11+ SPECInt2006/GHz, the SiFive Performance P650 brings RISC-V into a new category of high-end computing applications. The SiFive Performance P650 is scalable to sixteen cores using a coherent multicore complex, complete with essential system components such as platform-level memory management and interrupt control units, and supports the new RISC-V hypervisor extension for virtualization. SiFive will offer an “Architecture Preview” to select lead customers, for evaluation of the SiFive Performance P650 ahead of general availability.

“The introduction of the SiFive Performance P650 processor IP, coming so quickly on the heels of the SiFive Performance P550 processor, shows how devoted SiFive is to driving the RISC-V processor architecture deep into the data center and applications with similar high-performance requirements,“ said Steve Leibson, Principal Analyst at TIRIAS Research. “The company’s announced plans for 16-core, coherent processor complexes based on this IP will deliver considerable computing performance and requires the commitment of significant development resources, which are simply out of reach for many other companies playing in the RISC-V processor IP arena.”

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“With the new SiFive Performance P650 processor, SiFive’s engineering team has rapidly and successfully delivered a significant performance uplift for the SiFive processor family,” said Rohit Kumar, Senior Vice President of Engineering, SiFive. “SiFive’s rapid execution and expertise is on display as we build world-class products and serve high-performance markets. At SiFive, we’re determined to push the envelope of performance and demonstrate RISC-V has no limits, and the SiFive Performance P650 is the next step in a far-reaching product development roadmap.”

The SiFive Performance P650 Architecture Preview will be offered to lead customers in Q1 of 2022 with general availability coming mid-year. Dr. Lee will discuss future product direction and the SiFive Performance P650 during a keynote presentation at the upcoming RISC-V Summit 2021, held December 6-8 in-person at the Moscone Center, and online.