At the core of every electronic device that enables a product to be connected to the Internet, there is an embedded processor. IoT, AI, 5G communication, data encryption/decryption and other areas rely on power-efficient, secure, and economical embedded processors to carry out their important on-chip functions. These technologies are changing everything about the semiconductor industry. Speed is not the single critical attribute anymore. Energy consumption, durability, miniaturization, and configurability are becoming comparably important as these chips are being put into a multitude of industries and plethora of applications. General-purpose chips are not sufficient here – they could handle any of the tasks but they would then be large and power-inefficient. Thus the demand for custom chips keeps rising. Industry players will compete based on the best chip for a specific purpose – what kind of data capture and communications services their chip enables, and at what cost. Older technologies, not flexible enough to reflect the needs of new application domains (computer vision, machine learning, accelerators for HPC, etc.), together with pricing constraints, lead companies to seek alternative suppliers. As a result, main processor users established an open processor standard called RISC-V.
RISC-V (pronounced “risk-five”) is an open processor instruction set architecture (ISA) standard that can be freely used for any purpose, permitting anyone to design, manufacture, and sell RISC-V chips and software. It is designed to be useful in both high-performance computing and low-power embedded applications. Although RISC-V is open-source, to develop a processor requires very specific design expertise in several specialties: electronic logic, compilers, simulation, verification, embedded software, and debug. This creates a market opportunity for engineering teams capable of producing commercial-quality RISC-V processor IP. For companies that are failing to differentiate their products because they are using the same IP building blocks as their competitors and/or those feeling margins squeezed by legacy providers, Codasip offers a compelling value proposition: a processor IP with very high performance, fully tailorable so that it can be made uniquely for each customer around the world for convenient price, thanks to the design automation in Codasip Studio. We created a broad portfolio of licensable RISC-V processor IP consisting of several RISC-V derivatives for a broad range of application requirements, from very small-footprint and low-gate-count cores to high-performance, high-frequency cores with advanced DSP capabilities, for use in a variety of devices, from wireless sensors to 5G and AI chips.
Our technology supports European Commission action on strengthening the competitiveness and leadership of the European industry & science, in particular the European technology supply, in low-power microprocessor technologies for High Performance Computing (HPC) specifically the European Processor Initiative (EPI), cloud services with support of AI and other emerging applications and new evolving telecommunication standard as 5G. Europe is lagging behind the US and China in the development of IoT and AI technologies & applications. Europe is a net importer of digital services, running a digital trade deficit with the United States of nearly 5.6 percent of total EU-US services trade. Whilst Europe has strong communication and telecommunication technologies, it is in a challenging position when it comes to component and object sides of IoT technology, compared both to the US and China. We have been losing ground in the domestic production of semiconductors, software and consumer electronics devices as disclosed in Rebooting Europe’s High-Tech Industry report. Europe's revenue share of the global semiconductors market is decreasing and today accounts for only 11%. The biggest roadblock is our weak position in the IoT industry. It's paramount that our position in IoT improves, as it represents a major economic driver. Some estimates claim that every Euro spent on IoT solutions could drive up to 12 Euros in productivity gains, purchasing power and savings from economies of time. The countries that nurture the semiconductor ecosystem reap great benefits in increased employment, export opportunities and generally substantial impact on GDP.
