SiFive has made a significant move in the world of data center processors with the announcement of its new SiFive Performance P870-D. This RISC-V processor boasts an impressive capability of up to 256 cores, a significant leap from its predecessor, the P870, which featured a six-wide out-of-order core.
The P870-D introduces several key enhancements. It incorporates an open AMBA CHI bridge, facilitating energy-efficient cross-cluster communications. Each cluster, containing 1-4 cores, shares an L2 cache, allowing for seamless data transfer between these processing units. Moreover, the P870-D incorporates cross-cluster reliability and serviceability (RAS) features, vital for mission-critical applications, enabling the construction of massive, 256-core CPUs.
To handle the complexity of such a large-scale processor, SiFive has partnered with Arteris, licensing its Ncore cache coherence network-on-chip. This collaboration enables chip designers to build processors with performance potentially matching those of industry giants like AMD and Intel. The RISC-V architecture is known for its energy efficiency, and the P870-D leverages these advantages, promising compelling performance-per-watt metrics.
John Ronco, SVP of Product at SiFive, highlighted the significance of the P870-D: “The new P870-D enhances our proven Performance architecture to bring new levels of performance, flexibility, and scalability. The full solution offering from SiFive – including software, IOMMU, interrupt controller, and other uncore blocks – combined with our intelligence processors for dedicated AI compute makes it easy for our customers to achieve the most effective performance/watt/dollar metrics on AI and datacenter workloads.”
Michal Siwinski, CMO of Arteris, echoed the importance of the partnership: “Network-on-Chip IP significantly helps streamline the process of building complex, multi-core heterogeneous SoCs with the lowest latency and high bandwidth to accommodate AI workloads. We are pleased to continue the collaboration with SiFive, enabling the ecosystem to create high-performance and low-power RISC-V-based systems on time and budget while reducing risk.”
SiFive is currently providing sample versions of the P870-D to select customers, with full production expected before the year’s end. The first processors based on this groundbreaking architecture are anticipated to enter the market in 2025, promising a significant shift in the data center landscape.
