NASA pens deal with SiFive, Microchip.
NASA’s new High-Performance Spaceflight Computer (HPSC) will be powered by a custom RISC-V-based processor, it has been revealed.
The product of a collaboration between SiFive and Microchip, the chip will feature twelve RISC-V cores and is expected to offer 100x the performance of the BAE RAD750, the CPU used by NASA in previous missions.
According to Jack Kang, SVP Business Development at SiFive, the processor will provide the additional efficiency and horsepower necessary to support next-generation autonomous rovers, vision processing, spaceflight, guidance and communications technologies.