Chinese processor developer Unisoc has announced the E450R, the world’s first security chip based on the open RISC-V hardware/software architecture. The company claims that the new product provides a significant increase in performance and provides improved data protection.
Image source: Unisoc
In addition to cryptographic improvements, the E450R offers a 15% increase in non-volatile memory (NVM) erase/write speeds, improving performance for applications that require frequent memory operations. The fact that the E450R uses an open RISC-V architecture allowed Unisoc to optimize the processor cores for its applications, achieving greater performance with less power consumption compared to the traditional approach using off-the-shelf ARM R-based solutions.
Using RISC-V also avoids many legacy features that take up on-chip space and require additional resources. At the same time, Unisoc provides an API to ensure the E450R is compatible with existing software. It is noted that the specially designed chip microarchitecture reduces application code size by 30% and speeds up boot time by 120%.
The E450R has already received several important security certifications, including National Cryptography Level 2, UnionPay and CCRC IT EAL4+.