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New RISC-V microprocessor can run CPU, GPU, and NPU workloads simultaneously
One core to rule them all?
www.tomshardware.com/, Apr. 04, 2024 –
X-Silicon Inc. (XSi) has created a new RISC-V microprocessing chip architecture that combines a RISC-V CPU core with vector capabilities and GPU acceleration into a single chip. The CPU/GPU hybrid chip is open-standard and will reportedly be open-source as well, Jon Peddie Research reports, and it's designed to handle a variety of different functions, including AI, which dedicated CPUs and GPUs would normally handle. The catch is that it's supposed to do all this in a far more efficient manner.
The new CPU/GPU hybrid is designed as a "jack of all trades" processor. According to JPR, the industry has been seeking an open-standard GPU that's flexible and scalable enough to support a variety of markets, including virtual reality, automobiles, and IoT devices. This new RISC-V CPU/GPU aims to solve this issue by providing manufacturers with a single open chip design that can handle any desired workload.
X-Silicon's chip is unlike other architectures, as its design combines the capabilities of a CPU and GPU into a single-core architecture. This isn't like the typical designs from Intel and AMD where there are separate CPU cores and GPU cores. Instead, the core itself is designed to handle both CPU and GPU tasks. In that sense, it sounds a bit like Intel's abandoned Larabee project, which attempted to use x86 for graphics and other workloads.
The chip utilizes X-Silicon's C-GPU architecture that merges GPU acceleration into a RISC-V vector CPU core. The architecture has a RISC-V vector core with a 32-bit FPU and Scaler ALU. It features a Thread Scheduler, Clipping Engine, Rasterizer, Texture Unit, Neural Engine, and Pixel Processor. The chip is intended to handle applications including AI, high-performance computing (HPC), geometry computing, as well as 2D and 3D graphics.
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