UK startup is raising funds for Open Power processor

By Peter Clarke, eeNews Analog (March 9, 2022)

Red Semiconductor Ltd. is a UK startup designing a family of “auditable” microprocessors based on the Open Power processor instruction set architecture.

The processor is intended to run the Linux operating system amongst others and will be able to run x86 code in native mode thanks to emulation capabilities, according to David Calderwood, chairman of the company.

IBM announced it was opening up its Power processor architecture to licensing in 2013.

“Our plan is to develop a security auditable system-on-a-chip for mass volume applications in power-efficient hybrid 3D GPU and VPU workloads, as well as accelerated cryptographic, embedded network and communication applications,” the company states on its website.

Calderwood told eeNews Analog that IBM is supporting Red Semiconductor’s efforts to develop a high-performance, power-efficient processor capable of ALU, GPU and video processing. Red Semiconductor is working on test chips using open-source EDA tools from Sorbonne University’s LIP6 Lab. He added that the company is conducting a funding round that it expects to close in 3Q22.

At present the company, which was registered in October 2021, is operating on €750,000 of grant support from the European Union, Calderwood said. The European funding is through two of their funding initiatives; NLnet and the NGI Pointer.

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