SiFive pushes development server to take RISC-V into the datacenter

RISC-V chip champ SiFive has launched a development server built around its own CPUs to help port key workloads to the open compute architecture, and claims it already has hyperscalers and software customers signed up. The processor design firm biz showcasing its BigSky SF-2U870 datacenter development platform at the Hot Chips conference in Palo Alto, California, this week. At the show, it will run a variety of server workloads, and is built specifically for customers to accelerate RISC-V datacenter software porting, workload optimization, and system validation, SiFive says. RISC-V is an “open” instruction set, free for anyone to use – so long as they are capable of designing and producing processor chips that are compliant with the RISC-V specs. The system is based on silicon sporting 32 of SiFive’s P870-D cores operating at 2 GHz, with 256 GB DDR5 memory, a pair of 7.68 TB NVMe SSDs for storage and a 10/25 Gbps OCP-compliant network adapter. SiFive touts it as the world’s first enterprise-grade, rack-mount 2U RISC-V server, a claim that is hard to verify because of the surprising number of little-known companies that make up the global RISC-V ecosystem. There is China-based Sophgo, which sells 2U rack-mount RISC-V servers, for example – but this is understood to be blacklisted on the US Commerce Department’s Entity List. SiFive also claims it has lead customers currently running workloads on deployed BigSky systems, including hyperscalers, software developers, and major system-on-chip (SoC) vendors. The latter is important as the company is a fabless chip designer, akin to Arm, and does not make or sell the physical chips itself. Nevertheless, it says its IP is featured in more than 500 designs, and over 10 billion cores have shipped to date. Chairman and CEO Patrick Little says SiFive is working with others to boost deployment of RISC-V technology in the datacenter, and the BigSky box is vital in getting key software tools working on the architecture. “Ultimately, we are focused on enabling customers to meaningfully optimize the TCO of their custom SoC solutions with SiFive IP. RISC-V in the datacenter isn’t a distant aspiration any more, it is happening right now.” It isn’t enough to have hardware that is capable of doing the job, as Arm knows too well. It spent many years and much cash promoting its architecture as an alternative to x86 for servers and the datacenter, getting development systems into the hands of coders and sponsoring the porting of software to run on Arm chips. But it took hyperscalers like Amazon seeking custom processors tailored to their exact requirements for it to take off in servers. SiFive is mostly keeping quiet about who is backing its efforts, apart from naming Linux distributors Canonical and Red Hat. “Getting RHEL 10 running on SiFive’s BigSky platform isn’t just a validation exercise, it’s proof that we’re moving from the ‘theoretical’ phase into production-grade reality,” said Red Hat Technology Strategist Brian Harrington. “We’re excited to be partnering with SiFive to demonstrate that open standards can absolutely deliver the rigorous performance and reliability the modern datacenter demands.” SiFive has been working with GPU giant Nvidia on porting its CUDA software stack to RISC-V, and integrating its NVLink Fusion high-speed interconnect technology into future SiFive designs. As a demonstration of its progress, SiFive says it now has CUDA running on the BigSky system. These two developments would allow future systems based on SiFive silicon to operate as AI servers for LLM workloads using clusters of Nvidia GPUs, a capability it says has never been seen before on RISC-V hardware. The SiFive BigSky SF-2U870 is available today, but currently being produced in limited quantities. ®

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