RISC-V at Embedded World

One of the attractive features of RISC-V is the ability to add, while maintaining ecosystem software support, new optimized instructions and extensions to a processor implementation. At first it appears as simple task to look at opportunities in the application code that could be accelerated with some dedicated new hardware. However, since hardware typically has a much longer life cycle than software, future updates and roadmap needs must be anticipated. Thus, the art of ISA design is using fine grain analysis to accelerate just the key steps while leaving sufficient flexibility to support new software updates and advances. Also, in multi-core arrays the use of custom extension can offer a lightweight communication channel between processors. This extends the scope beyond the processor itself into system design and analysis. This talk will illustrate the key profiling and analysis steps for custom extensions and optimization.