SiFive just announced an array of new additions to its product stack that run the gamut, from tiny, ultra lower-power designs for far edge IoT devices, to more powerful engines for AI data centers, and everything in between. SiFive’s 2nd Generation Intelligence Family of RISC-V processor IP includes five new products — the X160 Gen 2 and X180 Gen 2, both of which are brand-new designs, in addition to upgraded versions of the X280, X390, and XM cores.
The SiFive 2nd Generation Intelligence Family broadens the company’s reach into the far edge and embedded AI spaces, while also improving performance and capabilities to target more demanding inference and training applications in the cloud. The designs are tailored for AI algorithms and offer an improved memory subsystem, featuring configurable caches and new memory latency tolerance mechanisms that help mask latency and maximize throughput under demanding workloads. The SiFive 2nd Generation Intelligence Family also supports additional datatypes, including native support for formats like BF16 (widely used in AI training) and vector crypto extensions, further expanding workload coverage.
