SiFive, a provider of RISC-V core IP, recently announced its Freedom Aware (FA) family of SoC templates as well as a strategic development partnership with QuickLogic. The FA SoC templates, which focus on intelligent processors targeting Edge and end-point applications, potentially lowers the cost and development time associated with new SoC designs.

SoC templates can reduce design time by using tested building blocks and a suite of development tools to ensure that finished SoCs mirror the results of pre-fabrication software emulations. The Freedom Aware SoC Templates leverage SiFive’s heterogeneous multi-core architecture and QuickLogic’s AI subsystem that’s available with programmable acceleration and sophisticated power-management technology that delivers ultra-low power solutions optimized for battery-powered consumer and industrial IoT applications.

In its implementation, two SiFive RISV-V cores (control plane and data plane) are embedded within the SiFive templates with Quicklogic’s eFPGA. Specifically, SiFive’s data-plane processor is coupled with the QuickLogic eFPGA to assist with algorithm acceleration and further customization.

The FA SoC Templates include an MCU that’s optimized for industrial and commercial IoT devices, with multiple processors, security cores, hardware accelerators, and always-on sensing. Other features include bundled predictive maintenance (PdM 4.0), and an always-on voice processor.