Microchip released the industry's first SoC FPGA development kit based on RISC-V instruction set architecture

The application of free and open source RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) is becoming more and more common, driving the demand for an economic and standardized development platform that embeds RISC-V technology and utilizes a diverse RISC-V ecosystem. To meet this demand, Microchip Technology Inc. announced the launch of the industry's first RISC-V-based SoC FPGA development kit. This development kit called Icicle is designed for industry-leading low-power, low-cost, RISC-V-based PolarFire® SoC FPGAs, bringing together many Mi-V partners to help accelerate customer design deployment in different industries And commercial applications.
Designers can now begin to develop and evaluate a wide range of RISC-V ecosystem products such as real-time operating systems (RTOS), debuggers, compilers, modular systems (SOM), and security solutions, thereby easily deploying RISC-V-based Programming SOC FPGA. The Mi-V RISC-V partner ecosystem is an ever-expanding and comprehensive tool suite and design resources developed by Microchip and many third parties to fully support RISC-V design.

Bruce Weyer, Vice President of Microchip's FPGA Business Unit, said: "With the widespread use of RISC-V software and silicon chips in the market, Microchip is leading the revolutionary transformation of processor design. We are eliminating barriers to entry through a low-cost evaluation platform. Through this platform, embedded engineers, software designers and hardware developers can simultaneously use the advantages of the open RISC-V ISA and Microchip’s PolarFire SoC FPGA with the industry’s best size, heat dissipation and low power consumption characteristics for design. "

David Patterson, vice chairman of the RISC-V International Board of Directors and winner of the 2017 Turing Award, said: “The low-power RISC-V development board priced at less than $500 is impressive. The Microchip Icicle kit has a built-in PolarFire SoC and will Accelerating the development of the RISC-V software ecosystem is good news for applications that require low-power mid-range SoC FPGAs."

Microchip's Icicle toolkit for PolarFire SoC and Mi-V ecosystem can be integrated with the following services to support PolarFire SoC FPGA:

· RISC-V processor complex from SiFive and embedded trace macrocell from UltraSoC

· Development tools from Adacore, Green Hills Software, Mentor Graphics and Wind River

· Commercial RTOS solutions that complement Microchip's Linux® and bare metal solutions, such as Nucleus and VxWorks

· Middleware solutions from DornerWorks, Hex Five, Verify Security and wolfSSL

· SOM and design services from organizations such as Antmicro, ARIES Embedded, Digital Core Technologies, Emdalo Technologies, Sundance DSP and Trenz Electronic

For the latest Mi-V partner list, please visit Microchip's Mi-V Partner Ecosystem webpage.

The Icicle toolkit is centered on the PolarFire SoC with 250,000 logic components, including PCIe® connectors, mikroBUS™ slots, dual RJ45 connectors, Micro-USB connectors, CAN bus connectors, Raspberry Pi® pin connectors , JTAG port and SD card interface provide developers with a fully functional development platform. Microchip's comprehensively designed, verified and tested power management and clock devices, Ethernet PHY (VSC8662XIC), USB controller (USB3340-EZK-TR) and current sensor (PAC1934T-I/JQ) provide support for the development board.

The total power consumption of PolarFire SoC FPGAs is 50% lower than competing products. By using SoC FPGA, developers can also get more customization and differentiation opportunities through the inherent upgradeability of the device and the ability to integrate functions on a single chip. The PolarFire SoC FPGA series offers a variety of packages and sizes to better balance application performance and power consumption, enabling customers to implement solutions in packages as small as 11 × 11 mm. Microchip's PolarFire SoC FPGA Icicle toolkit is ideally suited for intelligent embedded imaging, Internet of Things, industrial automation, defense, automotive and communications applications.