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Can anyone comment on how notable this announcement is for RISCV?

by jadbox 3y ago

monocasa 3y ago
Microblaze was in the gate count that is being actively decimated by RISC-V. Just like tensilica, arc, etc. have lost most their value add in the space. Having personally ported a kernel to microblaze, it's basically a halfway point between MIPS and SH4, classic pipelined RISC in the ~20k gate range. Probably the most interesting part of this announcement is that they're so in that they're straightup redefining their trademarked term "Microblaze" rather than making a new term and continuing to support classic Microblaze updates.
- kramerger 3y ago
  Microblaze is designed for optimal mapping to Xilinx FPGA cells, it doesn't make sense to compare ASIC gate count. Also, their secret sauce is the ecosystem and tooling around it. If you don't use that, you are not their target and are free to use any open source riscv core you please.
willis936 3y ago
Xilinx is a pretty big FPGA manufacturer and Microblaze offers a nice selection of fault tolerance features, including TMR. TMR on RISC-V is not novel here, but it does mean the large number of projects already using Microblaze, and new ones that want to use Microblaze, can now use RISC-V.
OhMeadhbh 3y ago
Back in the day, SiFive had a RV32 core that could fit in an Artix-7 that was pretty bare-bones. IO was random, it couldn't use the onboard DRAM, etc. It would be cool to see an officially supported RV32 softcore on an Artix-7. I had reasonably good experiences with the MicroBlaze back in the day, but would never think of using it for anything other than testing or education 'cause it was (very) closed source. And while I'm not the worlds biggest RISC-V cheerleader, this is the kind of thing that it's good at: "here's a tool that uses an ISA you may have already invested in. also, we're not going to try to lock you in to THAT side of the toolchain." I'm somewhat okay with AMD/Xilinx locking you in to whatever is underneath the ISA since you're probably going to have to pay for hardware somehow: either buying the FPGA or buying a catalog part (if they ever emerge.) Also... thx for pointing out AMD bought Xilinx. I had completely forgotten about it and was mildly surprised to see AMD adopting MicroBlaze.
- brucehoult 3y ago
  > Back in the day, SiFive had a RV32 core that could fit in an Artix-7 that was pretty bare-bones. I did some benchmarking on a single 64 bit dual-issue U74 core with FPU, caches etc running in an Arty-100T. Just a single core, not all five cores as in U74-MC (HiFive Unmatched, VisionFive 2 etc), but it was running Linux.
  - d_tr 3y ago
    Out of curiosity, how much of that FPGA did that configuration occupy?
    - OhMeadhbh 3y ago
      My memory is the E31 (RV32) used about 70% of the ARTIX-7 35T. Bruce probably remembers the stats on the U74 (RV64) better than I do. People kept stealing the ARTIX-7 100's off my desk so I never had the opportunity to play around with them.
BirAdam 3y ago
It’s a microcontroller that can also function as a real-time CPU. RISC-V is already quite popular in that market.
- OhMeadhbh 3y ago
  For some definitions of the word "popular". Definitely getting more popular than Tensilica, but still hasn't quite reached 8051 levels of popularity.
  - BirAdam 3y ago
    Every Western Digital HD, the Titan M2 in Pixel 6 and 7, newly manufactured Seagate HDs, and more… I’d say that counts as popular. Is it as popular as ARM? Technically, nothing comes remotely close to ARM in chips shipped. If that’s your measure, X86 isn’t popular.
    - OhMeadhbh 3y ago
      You probably have 2 or 3 8051s in your wallet. Virtually every appliance which uses electricity and has a display has one or two. And sure... you probably have more Pixel 6's and SD Cards than lightbulbs, but most homes in America have FAR more 8051s than RV32s.
brucehoult 3y ago
All the other major FPGA manufacturers already started offering an official supported RISC-V core as an alternative to their proprietary ISA cores a few years ago. Of course people also use 3rd party cores off github, but supported and integrated into the IDE and other tools means something to a lot of customers. MicroSemi have been offering RISC-V soft cores since 2017 and hard cores (PolarFire SoC, in e.g. the new BeagleBoard Fire, Icicle) since late 2020. Lattice announced their first official RISC-V soft core in I think June 2020 (collab with SiFive announced December 2019), and improved versions e.g. an 800 LUT core in mid 2021. Intel introduced Nios V in October 2021.

Can anyone comment on how notable this announcement is for RISCV?

by jadbox 3y ago

Can anyone comment on how notable this announcement is for RISCV?

Microblaze was in the gate count that is being actively decimated by RISC-V. Just like tensilica, arc, etc. have lost most their value add in the space. Having personally ported a kernel to microblaze, it's basically a halfway point between MIPS and SH4, classic pipelined RISC in the ~20k gate range. Probably the most interesting part of this announcement is that they're so in that they're straightup redefining their trademarked term "Microblaze" rather than making a new term and continuing to support classic Microblaze updates.

kramerger 3y ago
Microblaze is designed for optimal mapping to Xilinx FPGA cells, it doesn't make sense to compare ASIC gate count. Also, their secret sauce is the ecosystem and tooling around it. If you don't use that, you are not their target and are free to use any open source riscv core you please.

willis936 3y ago

Xilinx is a pretty big FPGA manufacturer and Microblaze offers a nice selection of fault tolerance features, including TMR. TMR on RISC-V is not novel here, but it does mean the large number of projects already using Microblaze, and new ones that want to use Microblaze, can now use RISC-V.

OhMeadhbh 3y ago

Back in the day, SiFive had a RV32 core that could fit in an Artix-7 that was pretty bare-bones. IO was random, it couldn't use the onboard DRAM, etc. It would be cool to see an officially supported RV32 softcore on an Artix-7. I had reasonably good experiences with the MicroBlaze back in the day, but would never think of using it for anything other than testing or education 'cause it was (very) closed source. And while I'm not the worlds biggest RISC-V cheerleader, this is the kind of thing that it's good at: "here's a tool that uses an ISA you may have already invested in. also, we're not going to try to lock you in to THAT side of the toolchain." I'm somewhat okay with AMD/Xilinx locking you in to whatever is underneath the ISA since you're probably going to have to pay for hardware somehow: either buying the FPGA or buying a catalog part (if they ever emerge.) Also... thx for pointing out AMD bought Xilinx. I had completely forgotten about it and was mildly surprised to see AMD adopting MicroBlaze.

brucehoult 3y ago
> Back in the day, SiFive had a RV32 core that could fit in an Artix-7 that was pretty bare-bones. I did some benchmarking on a single 64 bit dual-issue U74 core with FPU, caches etc running in an Arty-100T. Just a single core, not all five cores as in U74-MC (HiFive Unmatched, VisionFive 2 etc), but it was running Linux.
- d_tr 3y ago
  Out of curiosity, how much of that FPGA did that configuration occupy?
  - OhMeadhbh 3y ago
    My memory is the E31 (RV32) used about 70% of the ARTIX-7 35T. Bruce probably remembers the stats on the U74 (RV64) better than I do. People kept stealing the ARTIX-7 100's off my desk so I never had the opportunity to play around with them.

BirAdam 3y ago

It’s a microcontroller that can also function as a real-time CPU. RISC-V is already quite popular in that market.

OhMeadhbh 3y ago
For some definitions of the word "popular". Definitely getting more popular than Tensilica, but still hasn't quite reached 8051 levels of popularity.
- BirAdam 3y ago
  Every Western Digital HD, the Titan M2 in Pixel 6 and 7, newly manufactured Seagate HDs, and more… I’d say that counts as popular. Is it as popular as ARM? Technically, nothing comes remotely close to ARM in chips shipped. If that’s your measure, X86 isn’t popular.
  - OhMeadhbh 3y ago
    You probably have 2 or 3 8051s in your wallet. Virtually every appliance which uses electricity and has a display has one or two. And sure... you probably have more Pixel 6's and SD Cards than lightbulbs, but most homes in America have FAR more 8051s than RV32s.

brucehoult 3y ago

All the other major FPGA manufacturers already started offering an official supported RISC-V core as an alternative to their proprietary ISA cores a few years ago. Of course people also use 3rd party cores off github, but supported and integrated into the IDE and other tools means something to a lot of customers. MicroSemi have been offering RISC-V soft cores since 2017 and hard cores (PolarFire SoC, in e.g. the new BeagleBoard Fire, Icicle) since late 2020. Lattice announced their first official RISC-V soft core in I think June 2020 (collab with SiFive announced December 2019), and improved versions e.g. an 800 LUT core in mid 2021. Intel introduced Nios V in October 2021.