A New Era in RISC-V: SiFive’s HiFive Premier P550 Paves the Way for Software Innovation

In a groundbreaking advancement for the open-source RISC-V ecosystem, SiFive, the pioneering RISC-V innovator, announced the release of the HiFive Premier P550 development board, heralded as the world’s highest-performing RISC-V development board. Designed to fuel innovation across diverse technology fields, including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, data centers, and the Internet of Things (IoT), the P550 board exemplifies RISC-V’s adaptability to the performance demands of modern computing.

A limited pre-release batch of 100 Yocto Linux-based units—known as the “Early Access Edition”—is now available for purchase through Arrow Electronics. This limited release offers a unique opportunity for early adopters to experience the board’s capabilities, providing valuable feedback for SiFive’s broader December launch. The full-scale release will be equipped with Canonical’s Ubuntu 24.04, presenting developers with an optimized, ready-to-use platform that combines powerful hardware with a polished software stack.

“Since we announced the HiFive Premier P550 boards in April, our collaboration with Canonical has ensured that the board’s software ecosystem would be as impressive as its hardware,” explained Martyn Stroeve, Head of the HiFive board program at SiFive. “We know developers are eager to unlock this board’s potential, so we released an Early Access Edition to get it into the hands of innovators as soon as possible. Our December launch will deliver enhanced usability, and we’re excited to see where developers take it.”

The HiFive Premier P550 represents a significant leap in RISC-V’s processing power. Built around a quad-core SiFive Performance™ P550 processor clocked at 1.4 GHz, the board boasts an out-of-order core architecture that balances high-performance workloads with energy efficiency—a rare combination in today’s compute-intensive landscape. The architecture’s compute density and efficient power consumption make it particularly well-suited for demanding applications, from edge computing to large-scale AI and data center operations.

SIFive HIFive Premier P550 RISC-V development board. (Graphic: Business Wire)

At the RISC-V Summit North America, running this week in Santa Clara, SiFive will showcase the HiFive Premier P550 as part of its presence in the Developer Zone. Here, the company is also sharing insights into its long-term strategy for RISC-V development and revealing additional boards that target applications beyond general-purpose computing. “Customization in instruction sets is an enormous advantage, enabling developers to tailor solutions to specific needs,” Stroeve added, underscoring the adaptable nature of the RISC-V architecture.

The board’s power is amplified by key partnerships. Canonical, the force behind Ubuntu Linux, collaborated with SiFive to deliver an operating system that taps into the P550’s capabilities and offers developers a seamless experience from the moment they power on the device. The hardware is powered by ESWIN Computing’s high-performance EIC7700X System-on-Chip (SoC), which brings additional muscle for complex tasks. “We’re proud to have Ubuntu Linux at the heart of this advancement,” noted Gordan Markuš, Director of Silicon Alliances at Canonical. “The HiFive Premier P550 is a flagship development platform, and we’re excited to see the wave of innovation it will inspire.”

Scaling RISC-V for the Data Center: The SiFive XM Series and P870-D Processor

In addition to the HiFive Premier P550, SiFive is actively expanding into the data center sector with its newly launched SiFive Intelligence XM Series, a processor line designed for accelerating high-performance AI workloads. The XM Series integrates matrix compute engines optimized for demanding applications, marking SiFive’s commitment to positioning RISC-V as a viable choice in the AI-powered data center market. This move is a bold step as the XM Series delivers highly scalable performance that meets the needs of industries such as automotive, IoT, consumer devices, and data centers.

Ian Ferguson, Senior Director of Marketing at SiFive, noted that the XM Series responds to growing pressures for more power-efficient computing across sectors. “The current shift to open-source frameworks and customized silicon in data centers is a massive opportunity for RISC-V,” he explained. Ferguson, who has witnessed decades of shifts in the processor landscape through roles at ARM, Motorola, and now SiFive, emphasizes that RISC-V’s open nature is a game-changer for data centers, which increasingly rely on tailored, energy-efficient chips to support diverse workloads.

Complementing the XM Series is the SiFive Performance P870-D processor, specifically designed to tackle AI-driven, highly parallelizable workloads in data centers, streaming applications, and embedded systems. Built upon the success of SiFive’s P870, the P870-D introduces support for AMBA CHI protocol, facilitating seamless scalability across clusters. The architecture can scale up to 256 cores, leveraging protocols like Compute Express Link (CXL) and CHI chip-to-chip interconnect, a feature that allows for coherent high-core count configurations. This powerful adaptability positions the P870-D as a cost-effective, high-performance choice for data center architects working to reduce total ownership costs amid the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

“Energy efficiency is critical for data center architects and a clear differentiator for RISC-V,” said Edward Wilford, Senior Research Director at Omdia. “We forecast that more power-efficient data center processors will make up over 40% of the market by 2030, driven by the growth of open-source software and open-standard architecture.” This forecast aligns well with SiFive’s strategy, which seeks to make RISC-V a key player in the data center market by offering advanced energy efficiency combined with scalability.

Scaling Development with Arteris: The Power of a Pre-Verified Solution

SiFive’s journey into the data center market would not be complete without a robust ecosystem, and to that end, it has partnered with Arteris. Through this collaboration, SiFive’s P870-D processor integrates seamlessly with Arteris’ Ncore cache-coherent interconnect IP. The two companies’ combined offering provides a pre-verified solution, enabling data center developers to quickly scale their systems with minimal risk.

“The latest focus of the multi-year collaboration between Arteris and SiFive centers on reducing the risk, development cost, and timeline for customers creating RISC-V-based SoCs for data center use cases,” shared Ferguson. Arteris’ network-on-chip (NoC) interconnect IP is optimized for high bandwidth and low latency, providing reliable cache management and scalability, essential for meeting the needs of AI-driven data centers.

With SiFive’s state-of-the-art RISC-V solutions, the company is transforming the RISC-V landscape for a new generation of developers. From the HiFive Premier P550 board’s debut to its expanding data center processor lineup, SiFive is poised to drive the future of computing—one powered by open standards and sustained by unparalleled customization. In Ferguson’s words, “With RISC-V, we’re not just offering a board or a processor; we’re offering a way forward—a scalable, customizable future that grows with the needs of the industry.”

Tags: AI workloads, data center, HiFive Premier P550, open-source, RISC-V, SiFive

Category: SiFive

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