Microchip Expands Processor Product Line with Multi-Core 64-bit Microprocessor Family

PIC64GX MPU is the first in Microchip's PIC64 portfolio

Real-time, compute-intensive applications such as intelligent embedded vision and machine learning are driving the development of embedded processing needs, requiring higher energy efficiency, hardware-level security and high reliability at the edge. Microchip Technology Inc. today released the PIC64 family of products to further expand the scope of computing to meet the growing needs of today's embedded designs. The PIC64 family supports a wide range of markets that require real-time and application-level processing, making Microchip a single-vendor solution provider in the MPU space. The PIC64GX MPU is the first product in a new product family to be released to support intelligent edge designs in the industrial, automotive, communications, IoT, aerospace and defense fields.

“Microchip is a leader in 8-, 16- and 32-bit embedded solutions, and as the market evolves, so must our product lines,” said Ganesh Moorthy, Microchip CEO and president . “The addition of our 64-bit MPU portfolio enables us to offer low-, mid- and high-end computing processing solutions. The PIC64GX MPU is the first of several 64-bit MPUs designed to support the intelligent edge and address a wide range of performance needs across all market segments.”

The intelligent edge often requires a 64-bit heterogeneous computing solution with asymmetric processing capabilities to run Linux®, real-time operating systems and bare metal in a single processor cluster with secure boot capabilities. Microchip's PIC64GX family uses a 64-bit RISC-V® quad-core processor with asymmetric multi-processing (AMP) and deterministic latency to meet mid-range intelligent edge computing needs. The PIC64GX MPU is the first RISC-V® multi-core solution with AMP capabilities for mixed criticality systems. It features a quad-core design with a Linux-enabled central processing unit (CPU) cluster, a fifth microcontroller-level display and 2 MB of flexible L2 cache, running at 625 MHz.

The PIC64GX series is pin-compatible with Microchip's PolarFire® SoC FPGA devices, providing great flexibility for embedded solution development. In addition, the product can take advantage of Microchip's easy-to-use tools and supporting software ecosystem, including a series of powerful processes to help configure, develop, debug and verify embedded designs.

As one of Microchip's first 64-bit products, the PIC64 High Performance Space Computing (PIC64-HPSC) series is also coming soon. These space-grade 64-bit multi-core RISC-V MPUs are designed to increase computing performance by more than 100 times while providing unprecedented radiation resistance and fault tolerance for aerospace and defense applications . NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA-JPL) announced in August 2022 that it had selected Microchip to develop HPSC processors as part of the laboratory's efforts to advance commercial collaboration . The PIC64-HPSC series represents a new era of autonomous space computing for NSAS-JPL and the broader defense and commercial aerospace industries.

With the launch of the PIC64 portfolio, Microchip has become the only embedded solutions provider that develops a full range of 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit and 64-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) and microprocessors (MPUs). Future PIC64 series will include devices based on RISC-V or Arm® architectures, and embedded designers will be able to take advantage of Microchip's end-to-end solutions (from silicon to embedded ecosystem) to speed up design, debugging and verification, and shorten time to market. For more information, please visit Microchip's 64-bit product webpage.

Development Tools

The PIC64GX family is supported by the PIC64GX Curiosity Evaluation Kit and will be integrated with Microchip's MPLAB® Extensions for VS Code®. The PIC64 MPUs are also supported by Linux4Microchip resources and Linux distributors such as Canonical® Ubuntu® OS, Yocto Project® and Buildroot, as well as the Zephyr® real-time operating system and related software stacks.

Availability and Pricing

The PIC64GX Curiosity Kit is available now and designers can begin evaluation.

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