SiFive Unveils the first RISC-V-based Arduino Board

The Arduino Cinque enables the Arduino ecosystem with a true open-source SoC, the next step in bringing true open-source silicon to the masses.

SAN FRANCISCO – May 22, 2017 – SiFive, the first fabless provider of customized, open-source-enabled RISC-V semiconductors, today announced the release of the Arduino Cinque, the first RISC-V-based development board for the popular open-source hardware platform. Today’s announcement marks the latest development in SiFive’s work to democratize access to custom silicon.

The Arduino Cinque features SiFive’s Freedom E310, the industry’s first commercially available RISC-V SoC. Running at 320MHz, the FE310 is one of the fastest microcontrollers available in the market. Along with the FE310, the Arduino Cinque also features support for 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth via the inclusion of an ESP32 chip from Espressif, making this among the most advanced Arduino boards available today.

“The availability of the Arduino Cinque provides the many dreamers, tinkerers, professional makers and aspiring entrepreneurs access to state-of-the-art silicon on one of the world’s most popular development architectures,” said Dale Dougherty, founder and executive chairman of Maker Media. “Using an open-source chip built on top of RISC-V is the natural evolution of open-source hardware, and the Arduino Cinque has the ability to put powerful SiFive silicon into the hands of makers around the world.”

Said Jack Kang, vice president of product and business development at SiFive: “By partnering with a pioneer in open-source hardware, SiFive can further advance the progress of open custom silicon among makers, system designers and everyone else in between. We continue to be blown away by the support and attention the open-source silicon movement has gained in the past year alone. We look forward to seeing the community’s reaction to the Arduino Cinque board, and believe that the Arduino concepts of openness and distribution mean that more people than ever will be exposed to RISC-V.”

SiFive at Maker Faire Bay Area

Today’s announcement comes on the eve of a panel moderated by SiFive titled, “Manufacturing Your Own Chips: Is Open Source (like RISC-V) Making it Easier?” which is scheduled for Saturday, May 20, 2017, at the Maker Pro stage at Maker Faire Bay Area 2017, held at the San Mateo Event Center in San Mateo, Calif., May 19-21. The panel, which features American computer pioneer David Patterson and other prominent members of the open source community, will discuss the free and open RISC-V architecture (past, present and future) and the general future of chips and how RISC-V plays into that vision.

In addition, the first prototypes of Arduino Cinque will be on display at Maker Faire at the Arduino booth. For more information on this panel and its presenters, please visit: http://makerfaire.com/maker/entry/60546/

About SiFive

SiFive is the first fabless provider of customized semiconductors based on the free and open RISC-V instruction set architecture. Founded by RISC-V inventors Krste Asanovic, Yunsup Lee and Andrew Waterman, SiFive democratizes access to custom silicon by helping system designers reduce time-to-market and realize cost savings with customized RISC-V based semiconductors. SiFive is located in Silicon Valley and has venture backing from Sutter Hill Ventures, Spark Capital and Osage University Partners. For more information, visit www.sifive.com.