NVIDIA to Ship 1 Billion RISC-V Cores by 2024

According to reports, NVIDIA has revealed at this month's RISC-V Summit that its GPUs, traditionally reliant on proprietary CUDA cores, are now controlled by custom cores based on the industry-standard RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA), albeit with some extensions.

Modern GPUs are highly complex systems-on-chip, managing a wide array of functionalities and resources, from computational power and power management to display engines and security features. This management is now overseen by 10 to 40 custom RISC-V cores developed by NVIDIA, depending on the chip's complexity.

NVIDIA began transitioning from proprietary microcontroller cores to RISC-V-based microcontroller cores in 2015. Presentations at the RISC-V Summit indicated that nearly all of NVIDIA's microcontroller cores are now based on the RISC-V architecture.

To date, NVIDIA has developed at least three RISC-V microcontroller cores: the NV-RISCV32 (RV32I-MU, in-order single-issue core), the NV-RISCV64 (RV64I-MSU, out-of-order dual-issue core), and the NV-RVV (RV32I-MU, which incorporates a 1024-bit vector extension). These cores have replaced proprietary Falcon microcontroller units based on various instruction set architectures. Additionally, NVIDIA has created over 20 custom RISC-V extensions to enhance performance, functionality, and security.

One of the most significant RISC-V components in NVIDIA's GPUs is the embedded GPU system processor (GSP). According to NVIDIA, the first GPU to utilize a RISC-V-based GSP was based on the Turing architecture. This GSP can offload kernel driver functions, reducing the GPU's MIMO exposure to the CPU and managing GPU utilization.

The versatility of the MCU cores allows for their use across NVIDIA's products. During a presentation, it was estimated that NVIDIA expects to ship approximately 1 billion RISC-V cores embedded in its GPUs, CPUs, SoCs, and other products by 2024, highlighting the prevalence of custom RISC-V cores within NVIDIA hardware.

NVIDIA currently ships millions of GPUs each year. In 2023 alone, the company delivered 31 million desktop discrete GPUs (according to Jon Peddie Research), alongside numerous discrete GPUs for laptops, millions for data centers, and various other hardware types. This indicates that all of NVIDIA's chips now incorporate multiple RISC-V cores, demonstrating their significant role in the company's product lineup.