Lon­don, Eng­land – 21^st June 2022 – Ima­gi­na­ti­on Tech­no­lo­gies announ­ces IMG RTXM-2200, its first real-time embedded RISC‑V CPU, a high­ly sca­lable, fea­ture-rich, 32-bit embedded solu­ti­on with a fle­xi­ble design for a wide ran­ge of high-volu­me devices. IMG RTXM-2200 is one of the first com­mer­cial cores in Imagination’s Cata­pult CPU fami­ly, pre­vious­ly announ­ced in Decem­ber 2021.

Acce­le­ra­ting the expan­si­on of its RISC‑V offe­ring, Imagination’s IMG RTXM-2200 can be inte­gra­ted into com­plex SoCs for a ran­ge of appli­ca­ti­ons inclu­ding net­wor­king solu­ti­ons, packet manage­ment, sto­rage con­trol­lers, and sen­sor manage­ment for AI came­ras and smart meter­ing. Tog­e­ther with its mar­ket-lea­ding GPU and AI acce­le­ra­tor IP, Imagination’s new CPU cores offer cus­to­mers access to inno­va­ti­ve hete­ro­ge­neous solutions.

This real-time embedded core fea­tures up to 128KB of tight­ly cou­pled memo­ries (both ins­truc­tion and data) for deter­mi­ni­stic respon­se and Level 1 cache sizes of up to 128KB for robust per­for­mance. The new CPU offers a ran­ge of floa­ting-point for­mats inclu­ding sin­gle-pre­cis­i­on and bfloat16. The lat­ter enables manu­fac­tu­r­ers to deploy AI appli­ca­ti­ons through this core wit­hout the need for an addi­tio­nal chip. This redu­ces sili­con area, for a cost-effec­ti­ve and opti­mi­sed design in AI came­ras and smart meter­ing applications.

Chris Port­house, Chief Pro­duct Offi­cer, Ima­gi­na­ti­on, says: “We are exci­ted to announ­ce IMG RTXM-2200, our first real-time RISC‑V CPU, which under­pins our con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to dri­ving growth for the RISC‑V eco­sys­tem. Ima­gi­na­ti­on now has a uni­que and broad port­fo­lio of com­pu­te IP, inclu­ding GPU, AI acce­le­ra­tors, and now CPU, desi­gned for this inno­va­ti­ve architecture.”

Calis­ta Red­mond, CEO, RISC‑V Inter­na­tio­nal, says: “RISC‑V Inter­na­tio­nal is exci­ted to wit­ness Ima­gi­na­ti­on main­tai­ning its momen­tum by laun­ching its first licensable 32-bit embedded real-time pro­ces­sor, sin­ce the announce­ment of its ent­ry into the RISC‑V CPU IP mar­ket. This under­lines the expan­si­on of the RISC‑V archi­tec­tu­re as deve­lo­pers take advan­ta­ge of this fle­xi­ble tech­no­lo­gy to address mul­ti­ple mar­ket requi­re­ments. We are plea­sed to see Imagination’s com­mit­ment to dri­ve eco­sys­tem growth with the deli­very of its SDK and the sup­port of open-source ope­ra­ting systems.”

James Hodgson, Prin­ci­pal Ana­lyst, ABI Rese­arch, says: “As auto­ma­kers look to take advan­ta­ge of the poten­ti­al inno­va­ti­on and time to mar­ket advan­ta­ges of RISC‑V, they need an IP part­ner with pro­ven abili­ty to deli­ver in the auto­mo­ti­ve mar­ket, mee­ting the strin­gent power and safe­ty requi­re­ments of the ver­ti­cal. With the launch of IMG RTXM-2200, Ima­gi­na­ti­on lays the foun­da­ti­on for future auto­mo­ti­ve RISC‑V CPUs for this mar­ket, roun­ding out its port­fo­lio of GPU and AI acce­le­ra­ti­on IP. This posi­ti­ons Ima­gi­na­ti­on well to under­pin the hete­ro­ge­neous com­pu­te that will pro­ve essen­ti­al to mee­ting the con­nec­ted info­tain­ment and auto­no­mous vehic­le ambi­ti­ons of the auto­mo­ti­ve indus­try going forward.”

Ste­ve Leib­son, Prin­ci­pal Ana­lyst, TIRIAS Rese­arch, says: “It’s gre­at to see an estab­lished IP pro­vi­der such as Ima­gi­na­ti­on jum­ping onto and giving even more momen­tum to the RISC‑V band­wagon. With an initi­al empha­sis on real-time embedded appli­ca­ti­ons, the con­fi­gura­ble IMG RTXM-2200 CPU, the company’s first com­mer­cial RISC‑V core in the pre­vious­ly announ­ced Cata­pult fami­ly, should appeal to SoC design teams working in IoT and other embedded markets.”

Lever­aging Imagination’s 20 years plus of expe­ri­ence in deli­ve­ring com­plex IP solu­ti­ons, the new CPU is sup­port­ed by the rapidly expan­ding open-stan­dard RISC‑V eco­sys­tem, which con­ti­nues to shake up the embedded CPU indus­try through the demo­cra­tis­a­ti­on of com­pu­te, unlo­cking inno­va­ti­ve and open tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment for com­pa­nies at all levels. 

Soft­ware

Ima­gi­na­ti­on real-time embedded cores come with a ful­ly capa­ble soft­ware SDK and tools packa­ge at launch. They work out of the box across mul­ti­ple plat­forms to help deve­lop and sup­port the RISC‑V ecosystem. 

Shrey­as Derashri, VP of Com­pu­te, Ima­gi­na­ti­on, says: “For more than 20 years Ima­gi­na­ti­on has been crea­ting mar­ket-lea­ding GPU, AI acce­le­ra­tor, and CPU IP. This puts us in a uni­que posi­ti­on whe­re we can offer our cus­to­mers a robust and com­pe­ti­ti­ve choice when it comes to next-gene­ra­ti­on SoC deve­lo­p­ment. The IMG RTXM-2200 RISC‑V CPU brings tog­e­ther years of IP design expe­ri­ence and com­pre­hen­si­ve soft­ware sup­port to enable instant and easy access for deve­lo­pers, fur­ther enhan­cing our hete­ro­ge­neous offering.”

The Cata­pult Stu­dio Inte­gra­ted Deve­lo­p­ment Envi­ron­ment (IDE) is a modern, cut­ting-edge IDE based on Visu­al Stu­dio code pro­vi­ding a fami­li­ar envi­ron­ment that is bet­ter to use for up-to-date deve­lo­pers and desi­gners. The IDE; 

• runs on Win­dows, Ubun­tu, Cent­OS, and macOS; 
• offers full Linux sup­port (inclu­ding refe­rence boot­loa­ders, ker­nel, and filesystem); 
• is com­pa­ti­ble with gem5 soft­ware, unlo­cking simu­la­ti­on envi­ron­ments for enhan­ced power and ener­gy-effi­ci­en­cy testing. 

The IMG RTXM-2200 CPU is part of Imagination’s hete­ro­ge­neous com­pu­te solu­ti­on, offe­ring full hard­ware, soft­ware, and debug sup­port for Ima­gi­na­ti­on IP – com­ple­men­ting its mar­ket-lea­ding GPU, AI acce­le­ra­tor, and Ether­net Packet Pro­ces­sor (EPP) cores.