US company with Russian brains and Russian money unveils “breakthrough” in microprocessor performance
Soft Machines Inc., a Silicon Valley-based semiconductor startup company with an important R&D center in Russia, unveiled the Soft Machines VISC architecture
Nov 12, 2014
In late October, Soft Machines Inc., a Silicon Valley-based semiconductor startup company with an important R&D center in Russia, unveiled the Soft Machines VISC architecture – a "breakthrough" in microprocessor performance-per-watt scaling that will "significantly improve performance and power for all segments of the computing ecosystem," according to the company.
"We’ve been quietly building the company and developing the VISC architecture for more than seven years. Now that we have working silicon proving the invention, the time to unveil our breakthrough has arrived," said Soft Machines co-founder, vice chairman and CEO Mahesh Lingareddy.
The VISC architecture has been developed in response to single-core frequency and power-scaling issues and multi-core programming challenges. Based on the concept of "virtual cores" and "virtual hardware threads," its new approach enables dynamic allocation and sharing of resources across cores, according to the company.
Microprocessors based on CISC and RISC architectures make use of "physical cores" and "software threads," an approach that has been technologically and economically hamstrung by transistor utilization, frequency and power-scaling limitations. The VISC architecture achieves 3-4 times more instructions per cycle (IPC), resulting in 2-4 times higher performance per watt on single- and multi-threaded applications. Moreover, VISC uses a light-weight "virtual software layer" that makes VISC architecture applicable to existing as well as new software ecosystems.
The VISC architecture scales by changing the number of virtual cores and virtual threads. This approach provides a single architecture capable of addressing the needs of applications spanning from the Internet of Things (IoT), to mobile, and to data center markets.
Soft Machines is a 250-person late-stage semiconductor startup with operations in the USA, India and Russia and more than $125 million in funding to date.
Russia’s RVC, the state-backed fund of funds for innovation, and Rusnano, the nanotechnology state corporation, were part of the international investor pool that financed Soft Machines development from 2011 to 2014. Among other investors were Kacst/Taqnia (Saudi Arabia), Mubdala (UAE), AMD, Broadcom, and Samsung.
"We’ve been quietly building the company and developing the VISC architecture for more than seven years. Now that we have working silicon proving the invention, the time to unveil our breakthrough has arrived," said Soft Machines co-founder, vice chairman and CEO Mahesh Lingareddy.
The VISC architecture has been developed in response to single-core frequency and power-scaling issues and multi-core programming challenges. Based on the concept of "virtual cores" and "virtual hardware threads," its new approach enables dynamic allocation and sharing of resources across cores, according to the company.
Microprocessors based on CISC and RISC architectures make use of "physical cores" and "software threads," an approach that has been technologically and economically hamstrung by transistor utilization, frequency and power-scaling limitations. The VISC architecture achieves 3-4 times more instructions per cycle (IPC), resulting in 2-4 times higher performance per watt on single- and multi-threaded applications. Moreover, VISC uses a light-weight "virtual software layer" that makes VISC architecture applicable to existing as well as new software ecosystems.
The VISC architecture scales by changing the number of virtual cores and virtual threads. This approach provides a single architecture capable of addressing the needs of applications spanning from the Internet of Things (IoT), to mobile, and to data center markets.
Soft Machines is a 250-person late-stage semiconductor startup with operations in the USA, India and Russia and more than $125 million in funding to date.
Russia’s RVC, the state-backed fund of funds for innovation, and Rusnano, the nanotechnology state corporation, were part of the international investor pool that financed Soft Machines development from 2011 to 2014. Among other investors were Kacst/Taqnia (Saudi Arabia), Mubdala (UAE), AMD, Broadcom, and Samsung.