Domestic researchers have developed semiconductor design technology that enables the easy and rapid development of system semiconductors, which is expected to greatly assist domestic small and medium-sized fabless companies in quickly developing competitive products.

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced on the 13th that it has developed RISC-V eXpress (RVX), a platform that enables easy and fast design of RISC-V-based semiconductor chips.

RVX allows you to easily design semiconductors by simply selecting the IP that best suits your target performance and pressing the design button.

It has high usability as it applies ultra-low power technology specialized for the IoT/wearable field, and power consumption can be reduced by up to 35% by utilizing the temperature inversion phenomenon.

In fact, chips developed through the RVX platform have demonstrated world-class ultra-low power performance, capable of powering IoT applications that operate at 0.7V with just 0.48V.

In addition to ultra-low-power technology, the research team integrated various IPs, network technologies, and user interfaces into this platform, enabling the automatic design of system semiconductors tailored to the user's purpose.
/> RISC-V is an open source system that allows CPU manufacturers and designers to freely change the structure and design without licensing fees, enabling them to develop and sell semiconductor chips.

In addition, the research team developed a RISC-V ultra-low-power processor chip and presented it at ISLPED, a leading international academic conference on low-power design, and IEEE IoT Journal, a leading international journal on IoT. They also completed four technology transfers to companies such as LC Tech, a semiconductor equipment developer.

In addition, ETRI applied RVX to semiconductor design education for approximately 200 students in undergraduate courses at Chung-Ang University and Kyunghee University, providing them with the opportunity to design semiconductors themselves.

Students who completed this training proved that they can design semiconductors easily and quickly using the RVX platform by winning the Minister's Award at the 22nd Korea Semiconductor Design Competition and presenting international papers.

This research was conducted as part of the Ministry of Science and ICT's ETRI research and development support project, 'Development of lightweight RISC-V-based ultra-low-power intelligent edge intelligent semiconductor technology.'