MIPS Pivots to RISC-V with Best-In-Class Performance and Scalability

Previews the first IP solutions in the eVocore™ product lineup: P8700 and I8500 multiprocessors

SAN JOSE, Calif. – May 10, 2022 – MIPS, a leading developer of highly scalable RISC processor IP, announces its entrance to the RISC-V market, previewing the first products in its eVocore™ product lineup. The new eVocore P8700 and I8500 multiprocessor IP cores are the first MIPS products based on the RISC-V open instruction set architecture (ISA) standard.

eVocore products are designed to extend MIPS’ leadership in high-performance, real-time compute applications such as networking, datacenter, and automotive. According to Semico Research, the CAGR for SoCs shipping with RISC-V CPU cores between 2020 and 2027 is 73.6%, with the automotive segment projected to achieve a 69.9% CAGR during that time*.

“We will see continued adoption of RISC-V in areas such as automotive as companies see the possibilities for differentiation that an open software development environment can provide,” said Rich Wawrzyniak, principal ASIC and SoC analyst, Semico Research. “With MIPS’ long history providing RISC architectures and cores and its strong footprint in automotive, networking and other high-performance applications, the company’s move to RISC-V makes sense for the next stage of its growth.”

“With this transition to RISC-V, MIPS is targeting the high-performance segment of the processor market,” states MIPS CEO Desi Banatao. “By leveraging our differentiation in real-time features, hardware virtualization, functional safety and security technologies, we can offer compelling products for automotive, edge compute, networking and switching, and large-scale computing systems.”

“We are delighted that MIPS, one of the pioneers of RISC CPU architectures, is turning its attention to RISC-V,” said Calista Redmond, CEO of RISC-V International. “MIPS has long been used in high-end computing, an area where RISC-V is beginning to gain significant traction. MIPS is bringing to the RISC-V community a heritage of CPU innovation and new RISC-V compatible CPUs designed for flexibility and scalability.”

eVocore IP: Designed for high-performance heterogeneous compute

The new highly scalable and configurable RISC-V compatible eVocore IP cores are designed to provide performance leadership and a high level of scalability, enabling customers to blend coherent clusters of multi-threaded, multi-core CPUs in unique combinations to meet their exact power and performance requirements. The cores are designed to provide a flexible foundation for heterogeneous compute, supporting combinations of eVocore processors as well as other accelerators, with a Coherence Manager that maintains L2 cache and system-level coherency between all cores, main memory, and I/O devices.

Because the RISC-V ISA enables the addition of custom features in the form of user defined instructions (UDIs), MIPS can uniquely deliver proven and powerful features which are required in many high-end applications, while also being fully compatible with off-the-shelf RISC-V development tools and software libraries.

Both of the new eVocore IP cores provide support for privileged hardware virtualization, user defined custom extensions, multi-threading, hybrid debug, and functional safety. These features and the high level of scalability of the cores make them well suited for compute-intensive tasks across a broad range of markets and applications such as automotive (ADAS, AV, IVI), 5G and wireless networking, data center and storage, and high-performance embedded applications.

eVocore P8700 – Superscalar Performance: This multiprocessing system combines a deep pipeline with multi-issue Out-of-Order (OOO) execution and multi-threading to deliver outstanding computational throughput. It has single-threaded performance greater than what is currently available in other RISC-V CPU IP offerings, and it can scale up to 64 clusters, 512 cores and 1,024 harts/threads. The eVocore P8700 will be available in Q4 2022.

eVocore I8500 – Best-in-Class Performance Efficiency: This in-order multiprocessing system has best-in-class power efficiency for use in SoC applications. Each I8500 core combines multi-threading and an efficient triple-issue pipeline to deliver outstanding computational throughput.

Job Opportunities at MIPS

MIPS is hiring hardware and software engineers in locations around the world. To view a list of open positions, visit https://www.mips.com/careers.

About MIPS

MIPS is a leading developer of highly scalable RISC processor IP for high-end automotive, computing and communications applications. With its deep engineering expertise built over 35 years and billions of MIPS-based chips shipped to-date, today the company is accelerating RISC-V innovation for a new era of heterogeneous processing. The company’s proven solutions are uniquely configurable, enabling semiconductor companies to hit exacting performance and power requirements and differentiate their devices. Visit: www.mips.com.