RISC-V International, a non-profit corporation controlled by its members to drive the adoption and implementation of the free and open RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA), and CHIPS Alliance, the leading consortium advancing common and open hardware for interfaces, processors and systems, today announced a joint collaboration to update the OmniXtend Cache Coherency specification and protocol, along with building out developer tools for OmniXtend.
As part of this collaboration, RISC-V International and CHIPS Alliance have formed a new OmniXtend working group which will focus on creating an open, cache coherent, unified memory standard for multicore compute architectures. The group will update the OmniXtend specification and protocol, build out architectural simulation models and a reference register-transfer level (RTL) implementation, as well as create a verification workbench. These tools for an open, standard unified memory coherency bus leveraging OmniXtend will make it easier for designers to take advantage of OmniXtend for data-centric applications.
“As RISC-V International develops implementation independent specifications and ecosystem components, it is an important priority for us to ensure that whatever we develop will work with emerging and established standards. The joint working group will interact with various RISC-V groups to review the OmniXtend protocol with an emphasis on cache management and paying close attention to coherency enablement for RISC-V members,” said Mark Himelstein, CTO at RISC-V International. “As a result of this joint effort, the RISC-V community will have the tools they need to leverage an open, coherent, unified memory standard for all types of data-centric applications.”
“The newly formed OmniXtend working group will set the standard for open, coherent heterogeneous compute architectures. We plan to allow for a mixture of hardware IP blocks, giving developers more design flexibility so they can choose what works best for their specific application needs,” said Rob Mains, General Manager at CHIPS Alliance. “We encourage the RISC-V community to get involved in this important initiative which will open new design possibilities with OmniXtend.”
Dejan Vucinic of Western Digital will be giving a talk on OmniXtend at the CHIPS Alliance Spring Workshop on March 30, 2021. The event will also cover the AIB chiplet ecosystem, SWeRV Core support, FPGA tooling and much more. To register for this free virtual event, please visit: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/chips-alliance-spring-workshop/register/.