BlackParrot: An Agile Open-Source RISC-V Multicore for Accelerator SoCs

• Published in: IEEE MICRO Vol. 40; no. 4; pp. 93 - 102
• Main Authors: Petrisko, Daniel, Gilani, Farzam, Wyse, Mark, Jung, Dai Cheol, Davidson, Scott, Gao, Paul, Zhao, Chun, Azad, Zahra, Canakci, Sadullah, Veluri, Bandhav, Guarino, Tavio, Joshi, Ajay, Oskin, Mark, Taylor, Michael Bedford
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Alamitos IEEE 01-07-2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Accelerator Development; Agile; BlackParrot; Complexity theory; Linux; Microprocessors; Modularity; Multicore; Multicore processing; Open Source; Open source software; Pareto optimization; RISC; RISC-V; Silicon; Software engineering; Software Engineering of Hardware; System-on-chip
• ISSN: 0272-1732; 1937-4143
• DOI: 10.1109/MM.2020.2996145

This article introduces BlackParrot, which aims to be the default open-source, Linux-capable, cache-coherent, 64-bit RISC-V multicore used by the world. In executing this goal, our research aims to advance the world's knowledge about the “software engineering of hardware.” Although originally bootstrapped by the University of Washington and Boston University via DARPA funding, BlackParrot strives to be community driven and infrastructure agnostic; a multicore which is Pareto optimal in terms of power, performance, area, and complexity. In order to ensure BlackParrot is easy to use, extend, and, most importantly, trust, development is guided by three core principles: Be Tiny, Be Modular, and Be Friendly. Development efforts have prioritized the use of intentional interfaces and modularity and silicon validation as first-order design metrics, so that users can quickly get started and trust that their design will perform as expected when deployed. BlackParrot has been validated in a GlobalFoundries 12-nm FinFET tapeout. BlackParrot is ideal as a standalone Linux processor or as a malleable fabric for an agile accelerator SoC design flow.