Over the past three to four years, open instruction sets and architecture RISC-V received many supporters, including WDC and Samsung. This is still not enough for the formation and mass character, but it is enough for promising developments to appear over and over again. For example, Micro Magic has introduced a 64-bit RISC-V processor core that is hundreds of times more efficient than Apple’s latest ARM M1 processor.
To prove their words, Micro Magic provided our colleagues from the site EE Times the results of testing the processor on its 64-bit RISC-V core on the Odroid board (see photo above). With a 0.8 V supply, the core worked at 4.327 GHz, and with a 1.1 V supply, it reached a clock frequency of 5.19 GHz.
At the maximum frequency, the Micro Magic core scored 13,000 points in the CoreMarks test. At 4.25 GHz, 0.8 V and 200 mW, the RISC-V core scored 11,000 points. In total, the RISC-V Micro Magic core is potentially capable of showing 55,000 points per 1 watt of consumed energy in CoreMarks.
For comparison, the Apple M1 processor in the same CoreMark test scores 10,000 points. If this value is divided by eight cores and 15 watts, the efficiency of one conventional Apple M1 core will be less than 100 points per watt. The comparison is clearly not in favor of Apple.
The most productive ARM Cortex-A9 processors for four cores show 22,343 points in CoreMarks. With 5W consumption and four cores, each Cortex-A9 core is capable of 1112 points per watt. The developer notes that with such a consumption, it can offer a 25-core processor with battery power. There are no analogues to this in the world today, we are sure of Micro Magic.
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But that’s not all, yesterday Micro Magic published Press release, in which she announced the capture of a new milestone. The most advanced RISC-V core design, the document says, now shows 110,000 points per watt in the CoreMark benchmark! No details yet. The company did not provide them.
In conclusion, a few words about Micro Magic. It was founded in 1995 in California, USA. Micro Magic specializes in automated integrated circuit design (EDA) tools. Shortly after founding, Micro Magic was bought by Juniper Networks for $ 260 million. In 2004, Micro Magic was re-created by the same founding fathers. Both founders, Mark Santoro and Lee Tavrow, worked together at Sun Microsystems and led the team that developed the 300 MHz SPARC microprocessor. Later, Mark Santoro worked under Steve Jobs at Apple. Both know RISC and understand the culture of this architecture. As for the new RISC-V cores, Micro Magic is preparing to license them for everyone.
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