Researchers Sandro Pinto and Tiago Gomes, from the Embedded Systems Research Group (ESRG) of the ALGORITMI Center of the University of Minho, organized this week an international workshop dedicated to RISC-V technology, which brought together experts from some of the world’s leading companies in the semiconductor and computer systems sectors, including Qualcomm, Infineon, GlobalFoundries, among others.
The main objective of the meeting was to advance the discussion and development of new specifications within the scope of RISC-V, contributing to the definition of a new security architecture for the next generation of microcontrollers based on this technology. The ongoing work focuses on the development of efficient isolation mechanisms, specifically designed for microcontrollers, IoT devices and low-power systems with limited computational resources, in which traditional security and isolation solutions used in larger processors are often too complex or incur excessive costs.
These new capabilities seek to strengthen the competitiveness of the RISC-V architecture in segments where proprietary architectures, namely Arm, currently have a dominant presence. RISC-V is an open and royalty-free computer architecture that has seen strong adoption worldwide. Its evolution is driven by an international community that brings together some of the world’s largest technology and semiconductor companies, as well as leading universities and research centers.
The activity developed by the ESRG goes far beyond the use of RISC-V technology as a research object. Its researchers participate directly in the discussion and definition of new architecture specifications, working side by side with experts from leading companies in the industry and contributing to technologies that may integrate future generations of RISC-V processors and microcontrollers.
The organization of this workshop, and the participation of international reference companies, reflect the recognition of ESRG’s scientific and technological competence in this area, reinforcing its international position in research in computer architectures, embedded systems and security.
This work also complements the team’s participation in European research and innovation initiatives, including the European project RIGOLETTO, with an overall budget of approximately 65.2 million euros, which aims at the development of RISC-V-based reference platforms for the automotive sector, reinforcing the presence of the ALGORITMI Center and the ESRG in the development of next-generation RISC-V technologies.
SOURCE: ALGORITMI
