The NB2 SoC includes four RISC-V cores produced by SiFive, as well as an iGPU, NPU and VPU. LeapFive employed 12 nm nodes to produce the chips and also offers motherboards that expand the SoC capabilities with additional ports and features.
China’s continuous endeavors to promote domestic technology and reduce reliance on foreign players has spawned quite a few promising CPU and GPU projects over the past few years. As far as the processor side goes, some models have tried to copy existing x86 implementations from Intel or AMD, but there is a performance gap of at least 5 years for consumer solutions. Other projects tapped into alternative architectures such as ARM’s core technology, and, more recently, RISC-V, showing a greater potential to match what the U.S. giants are offering. A new Chinese chipmaker called LeapFive recently introduced its own take on RISC-V tech, which apparently also helps with the efforts to reduce climate change and ensure a carbon neutral future.