As of March 2022, AMD Radeon Technologies Group (RTG) has been quietly hiring a team of RISC-V CPU and GPU designers for their established team of architects and designers. The Job descriptions indicate that the development of RISC-V-based solutions is already underway, at the chip manufacturer. That the Radeon Technologies Group is hiring could give some hints on the focus applications being discussed.
The job description offers general details about what AMD expects from a RISC-V micro-architect and RTL designer. The company is going after a specialist in the area of high-performance GPUs: RISC-RV64 CPUs and CPUs that have out-of-order execution, speculative execution, and branch predictors.
There is precious little to go on at this time, like what kind of CPUs and GPUs are actually being built, prototyped, or designed specifically and for what types of embedded systems AMD is looking to develop.
The new position will know and improve “existing and emerging graphics/computer paradigms as well as new APIs employing RISC-V processors.” There will also be analyzation of CPU workloads and an offering of recommendations for improvements. There needs to be an advanced understanding of bottlenecks and the other challenges where an embedded CPU can improve performance.
There is little likelihood of AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group developing their own CPUs. There probably won’t be an AMD-branded RISC-V CPU, or any licensable RISC-V embedded CPU cores or designs, from the RTG. There could be a number of processes a dedicated CPU in a GPU could handle, like –
- Certain onboard functions could be managed
- Running an operating system
- Fetching data from storage
- Security via a root of trust
RISC-V open source platform is built to handle emerging applications so it could be possible something new in the CPU/GPU realm is coming out of the RTG. It can be fairly certain whatever they are working on it is not something as simplistic as a microcontroller. It will surely be competitive and somewhat breathtaking in its ability, as AMD produces such products on a regular basis.
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For the past 8 years, I have been writing about embedded technologies, added to my technical, academic, and medical editorial experience, with companies like Elsevier and Cambridge University Press. I tell people to read what I write, not try to pronounce my last name. I am always available for comments and suggestions you can reach me at product-editor@circuitcellar.com and I promise I will take the time to reach back out to you. I live in the North East with my wonderful family.
