A highly scalable, feature-rich, 32-bit embedded solution with a flexible design for a wide range of high-volume devices, the IMG RTXM-2200 is one of the first commercial cores in Imagination’s Catapult CPU family, which was previously announced in December 2021.
Accelerating the expansion of its RISC-V offering, Imagination’s IMG RTXM-2200 can be integrated into complex SoCs for a range of applications including networking solutions, packet management, storage controllers, and sensor management for AI cameras and smart metering.
This real-time embedded core features up to 128KB of tightly coupled memories (both instruction and data) for deterministic response and Level 1 cache sizes of up to 128KB for robust performance. The CPU offers a range of floating-point formats including single-precision and bfloat16. The latter enables manufacturers to deploy AI applications through this core without the need for an additional chip - reducing silicon area and enabling a more cost-effective and optimised design in AI cameras and smart metering applications.
Chris Porthouse, Chief Product Officer, Imagination, said, “We are excited to announce IMG RTXM2200, our first real-time RISC-V CPU, which underpins our continued commitment to driving growth for the RISC-V ecosystem. Imagination now has a unique and broad portfolio of compute IP, including GPU, AI accelerators, and now CPU, designed for this innovative architecture.”
Commenting James Hodgson, Principal Analyst, ABI Research, added, “With the launch of IMG RTXM-2200, Imagination lays the foundation for future automotive RISC-V CPUs for this market, rounding out its portfolio of GPU and AI acceleration IP. This positions Imagination well to underpin the heterogeneous compute that will prove essential to meeting the connected infotainment and autonomous vehicle ambitions of the automotive industry going forward.”
Steve Leibson, Principal Analyst, TIRIAS Research, welcomed the move by Imagination and said that it would give even more momentum to the RISC-V 'bandwagon'.
“With an initial emphasis on real-time embedded applications, the configurable IMG RTXM-2200 CPU, the company’s first commercial RISC-V core in the previously announced Catapult family, should appeal to SoC design teams working in IoT and other embedded markets,” Leibson said.
The new CPU is supported by the rapidly expanding open-standard RISC-V ecosystem.
Imagination real-time embedded cores come with a fully capable software SDK and tools package at launch. They work out of the box across multiple platforms to help develop and support the RISC-V ecosystem.
Shreyas Derashri, VP of Compute, Imagination, said,”The IMG RTXM-2200 RISC-V CPU brings together years of IP design experience and comprehensive software support to enable instant and easy access for developers, further enhancing our heterogeneous offering.”
The Catapult Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a cutting-edge IDE based on Visual Studio code providing a familiar environment that is better to use for up-to-date developers and designers.
The IDE runs on Windows, Ubuntu, CentOS, and macOS; offers full Linux support (including reference bootloaders, kernel, and filesystem); and is compatible with gem5 software, unlocking simulation environments for enhanced power and energy-efficiency testing.
