ARM and X86 are the architectures used by the majority of processor chips on the market today. But the RISC-V architecture is now gaining industry attention because it is an open source design and is therefore seen as a future architecture that avoids technology barriers imposed by certain countries. Unisoc this week unveiled the E450R chip which it says is the first RISC-V based security chip.
The key feature of the E450R is the asymmetric cryptographic PKE algorithm engine which is claimed to be 50% faster than previous generation chips. Even if a longer cryptographic key is used, the chip will maintain performance with no reduction in processing speed.
In applications involving transactions, this chip is also able to increase performance by up to 50%. Speed is also achieved by increasing write and read memory up to 15%. The chip has also been certified to pass National Cryptography Level 2 standards, UnionPay software and chips and CCRC IT EAL4+.
This is another exciting development in the use of RISC-V. A year ago Robert Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductors, and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc announced new companies that want to advance the use of RISC-V architecture to drive next-generation hardware. Meanwhile, Google also expressed its intention to support RISC-V chips on Android and Wear OS devices.