The MCU Dilemma
By Brian Bailey, Semiconductor Engineering
Microcontroller vendors are breaking out of the box that has constrained them for years. Will new memory types and RISC-V enable the next round of changes?
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But this is not a path for everyone. “Open-source IP, especially RISC-V processors, offers advantages while enabling innovation and differentiation in hardware as well as software,” says Tom Anderson, member of OneSpin’s Technical Marketing team. “RISC-V allows user-defined instructions to be added, and other forms of IP may well follow suit in offering customization options. However, both the variety of sources for RISC-V cores and the ability to modify them demand a strong verification process. Users must ensure that a core is compliant with the RISC-V specification, that any user extensions work properly and do not break compliance, and that the core’s microarchitecture is fully verified, as well.”