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Ibex: A small 32-bit microcontroller-class RISC-V CPU core (lowrisc.org)
4 points by matt_d on June 10, 2019 | hide | past | favorite | 1 comment



Ibex was born as "Zero-riscy", which had a smaller sibling named "Micro-riscy". https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8106976 gives an indication of power consumption and clock speeds:

"Micro-riscy is 1.6× smaller than Zero-riscy (~11.6 kgates in UMC 65nm), has a power envelope of just 100μW at 160MHz and it is 1.4× more energy efficient than Zero-riscy on pure control code."

Given the renaming, Micro-riscy could well be equivalent to an Ibex with the minimal area "E-extension".

I wish some big name would pick this core and create a line of cheap low-power MCU's from 10 to 100 pins. To my knowledge only Espressif's next chip, after the soon to launch "Chip 7", is known to likely be a RISC-V. Bound to be hugely popular because of low-power, high clocks, code-efficieny, Rust compatibility and a smooth upgrade path. What's not to like?




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