SmartDV helps the fast-growing Chinese RISC-V CPU IP manufacturers to embark on a path of high-quality development

Entering 2024, the global RISC-V community is accelerating its development in both technology and application, and domestic RISC-V CPU IP providers in China are also making breakthroughs in core performance and application expansion. This trend can be clearly seen from the 2024 RISC-V China Summit held in Hangzhou a few weeks ago and other industry and manufacturer events. As a leading global IP supplier, SmartDV has also received some suggestions and inquiries from its Chinese customers and like-minded RISC-V CPU IP suppliers, hoping to establish a partnership with us to jointly promote the continued rapid development of the chip industry in the AI ​​era.

SmartDV has also seen this new wave. The last time the industry celebrated the important milestone of RISC-V chip shipments exceeding 10 billion, many industry insiders and analysts told us that China accounted for half of the shipments; and in these recent industry and corporate events, the various products and technologies displayed by Chinese RISC-V IP suppliers once again show that they are playing a more important role in this field. Not only does China's RISC-V processor IP manufacturers have a large lineup, but each company is trying to enter many new application areas through high-performance CPUs.

Following its success in 32-bit processors required by markets such as the Internet of Things and MCU, RISC-V CPU IP suppliers are trying to open up high-value markets such as application processors, servers and high-performance computing, Android applications, AI/ML and edge computing, ADAS and autonomous driving. At the same time, these CPUs no longer work alone for a single or a few functions. "RISC-V + accelerator" has become an established trend in edge computing , and RISC-V processors used in the field of edge intelligence are rapidly breaking new ground. More and more RISC-V manufacturers provide a full set of solutions including related hardware IP, software libraries, frameworks and tools.

With these technological breakthroughs from leading RISC-V CPU IP developers, more and more SoC/ASIC developers and their system customers are looking to fully leverage the unique value of the RISC-V ISA, so the next key factor for the success of all stakeholders is to build a strong ecosystem that can scale faster than competitors using other ISAs. SmartDV and its wholly-owned subsidiary in China, Intellectual Property Semiconductor Technology (Xiamen) Co., Ltd., are very pleased to work with leading RISC-V CPU IP providers to quickly build an ecosystem to benefit all stakeholders. SmartDV has extensive experience working with RISC-V CPU IP suppliers, and we are very happy to bring this experience to China. Expected results include:

• Work together to create a business model that supports the continuous growth of customers and their customers. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric (GE), once said: Before you become a leader, success is self-growth; when you become a leader, success is helping others grow. Similarly, SoC/ASIC customers not only need a powerful CPU or efficient processor IP, but also a large number of other IPs such as buses, memories, and peripherals provided by SmartDV and its peers. Therefore, SmartDV is pleased to cooperate with China's RISC-V CPU IP providers to jointly create pre-integrated and pre-verified IP solutions to provide better support for our common SoC/ASIC customers.

  
  

  In addition to faster time to market and high-quality designs, Chinese RISC-V CPU IP suppliers and their customers can also benefit from SmartDV's rich experience and applications in 5G, artificial intelligence, audio and video, automotive, compression codecs, IoT, mobile, networking, storage, and low-altitude economy. This is the potential synergy of an ecosystem.

  
  

• Enhance the product value of RISC-V CPU IP and lower the entry barrier. SmartDV has long been known for its complete verification solutions for SoC/ASIC design. We all know that verification is a very time-consuming and laborious task in chip design, and many fabless semiconductor companies in China are accustomed to planning shorter design cycles than their peers. Therefore, a verification solution tightly coupled with a new CPU IP is very helpful to both CPU IP vendors and their SoC/ASIC customers.

  
  

  SmartDV is not only one of the world's leading verification IP (VIP) suppliers, the company also has many customer-proven verification solutions, such as FPGA-based prototyping. In addition, as in the previous point, SmartDV will bring its rich experience in best practices to these verification solutions. Therefore, both RISC-V CPU IP suppliers and their customers can benefit from these best practices, and these verification solutions will also become an optional organic part of SmartDV partners' CPU IP and FPGA devices.

  
  

• Help customers create unique value from full-chip deep differentiation. Compared with other ISAs, customization and modular architecture are the two most important aspects of RISC-V ISA that attract SoC/ASIC designers. But to achieve differentiation, designers further need other customized IPs in the system/chip. Therefore, in addition to a very rich portfolio of design IP products based on popular and industry-standard products, SmartDV is also able to work in depth with RISC-V CPU IP providers by providing customized IPs for applications in specific fields and meeting their deep differentiation needs.

  
  

  SmartDV's proprietary SmartCompiler™ technology enables us to quickly customize products to our customers' specifications or even create new IP to meet their specific needs. SmartCompiler enables us to break the one-size-fits-all IP model in the industry and provide the IP you want for your chip design. Of course, SmartDV also provides automotive or avionics grade IP. All of these IPs can be pre-integrated and pre-verified with RISC-V processors, providing SoC designers with greater efficiency. SmartDV and its RISC-V partners such as Codasip for custom SoC designs have already secured many projects.

Therefore, you can find that RISC-V CPU IP providers can engage in ecosystem-based cooperation with SmartDV and gain a lot of value from it. The kind of cooperation we have already carried out has also brought fruitful results to the world's leading semiconductor companies. Seven of the top ten semiconductor companies in the world and the four leading consumer electronics brand manufacturers are customers of SmartDV. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of SmartDV in China, Intellectual Property Semiconductor is bringing the cooperation model extracted from these successful cases to China to strengthen its cooperation with China's RISC-V CPU IP providers and benefit all stakeholders.