Imagination and Andes jointly validate GPU with RISC-V CPU IP

Partnership provides a complete compute solution and demonstrates the flexibility of combined IPs

London, England - January 18, 2022 – Imagination Technologies and Andes Technology announce the successful testing and validation of the IMG B-Series Graphics Processing Units (GPU) with the RISC-V compliant Andes AX45, a 64-bit highly performance-efficient and configurable superscalar Central Processing Unit (CPU). This validation partnership offers customers in AR/VR, In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) systems, and Industrial and Internet of Things (IoT) products, a proven and complete solution and lays the groundwork for continuous testing.

The IMG BXE-2-32 GPU was validated alongside the Andes AX45 CPU as a part of a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform, containing networking, memory and peripherals. The FPGA rendered numerous graphics workloads and benchmarks using a Linux based operating system. This FPGA demonstrates the flexibility of the IMG B-Series GPU and the interoperability of the Andes AX45 RISC-V CPU.

Colin McKellar, Vice President of Hardware Engineering, Imagination Technologies, says: “RISC-V is a CPU architecture that is going from strength to strength. Our work in validating the B-Series GPU with Andes AX45 RISC-V CPU highlights the flexibility of both platforms. The customisable nature of Imagination’s ecosystem allowed for the rapid prototyping of a fully working system in less than a week, from integration to implementation and on to validation.”

McKellar continues: “Collaborating with Andes highlights the exceptional talent in both organisations. The ease of integration, both of the hardware and our teams, paves the way for a highly beneficial ongoing partnership and shows that there are exciting alternatives to the current CPU incumbents.”

Dr. Charlie Su, President and CTO of Andes Technology, says: “The RISC-V ecosystem is growing rapidly. To continue its growth and showcase the many possible ways it can be deployed, we partnered with Imagination to provide a quick and easy path to validated GPU IP blocks that can reduce SoC design time, risk and cost for our customers. With a flexibly designed GPU, and our highly configurable dual-issue AX45 RISC-V core, we were able to establish requirements for the system in a short time and generate the optimum configuration to provide a validated proof of concept.”

About Imagination Technologies

Imagination is a UK-based company that creates silicon and software IP (intellectual property) designed to give its customers an edge in competitive global technology markets. Its GPU, CPU and AI technologies enable outstanding power, performance, and area (PPA), fast time-to-market and lower total cost of ownership. Products based on Imagination IP are used by billions of people across the globe in their smartphones, cars, homes, and workplaces.

See www.imaginationtech.com.

About Andes Technology

Sixteen years in business and a Founding Premier member of RISC-V International, Andes (TWSE: 6533; SIN: US03420C2089; ISIN: US03420C1099), is a leading supplier of high-performance/low-power 32/64-bit embedded processor IP solutions, and the driving force in taking RISC-V mainstream. Andes’ fifth-generation AndeStar™ architecture adopted the RISC-V as the base. Its V5 RISC-V CPU families range from tiny 32-bit cores to advanced 64-bit cores with DSP, FPU, Vector, Linux, superscalar, and/or multicore capabilities. The annual volume of Andes-Embedded SoCs has exceeded 2 billion since 2020 and continues to rise. At the end of 2021, the cumulative volume of Andes-Embedded™ SoCs has reached 10 billion. For more information, please visit https://www.andestech.com.