Siemens pioneers commercial grade Linux support for the RISC-V architecture

Plano, Texas, USA - December 13, 2022 -- Siemens Digital Industries Software today announced that its Sokol^TM Flex OS software now supports RISC-V embedded development with the availability of one of the industry’s first commercially supported, extensible, and customizable Linux® platforms for the RISC-V architecture. Based on the popular, open-source Yocto Project industry standard, Siemens‘ Sokol Flex OS helps embedded developers create customized, Linux-based systems for RISC-V architectures with ease, security and confidence.

The RISC-V architecture is ideally suited for industrial, medical, defense-aerospace, and consumer applications. Semico Research predicts that global deployment of the architecture will reach 62.4 billion cores by 2025.

Siemens’ Sokol Flex OS for the RISC-V architecture streamlines application development, allowing customers to focus on value-add differentiation. Security and cloud enabled, Siemens’ Sokol Flex OS features built-in security to monitor and detect common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) and is commercially supported to help customers develop reliable systems. In addition, Sokol Flex OS for RISC-V customers receive quarterly updates and security patches, including a robust toolchain for software performance analysis.

“Siemens continues to show leadership within the RISC-V ecosystem with the launch of Sokol Flex OS for RISC-V,” said Krishnakumar Ramamoorthi, senior product marketing manager of Microchip Technology's FPGA business unit. “Now PolarFire SoC FPGA users can leverage a commercially supported Linux distribution backed by the power of Siemens.“

Siemens’ investment in RISC-V systems development continues

Siemens is a strategic member of RISC-V International and has been involved in its development and adoption since 2019. Demonstrating Siemens’ ongoing investment and commitment to RISC-V technology, the company last year delivered one of the industry’s first commercial real-time operating systems (RTOS) for RISC-V architectures.

“Siemens is a respected collaboration partner to many in the industry, and their contributions to the success of the RISC-V community are especially apparent in the embedded space,” said Calista Redmond, CEO of RISC-V International. “With their new solution, we’re witnessing the momentum go fully mainstream together with a rapidly growing ecosystem,”.

Siemens’ Sokol Flex OS for RISC-V platform will be available in Q1 2023. To learn more about this solution visit: https://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/global/en/products/embedded/flex-os.html.

Siemens Digital Industries Software helps organizations of all sizes digitally transform using software, hardware and services from the Siemens Xcelerator business platform. Siemens' software and the comprehensive digital twin enable companies to optimize their design, engineering and manufacturing processes to turn today's ideas into the sustainable products of the future. From chips to entire systems, from product to process, across all industries, Siemens Digital Industries Software is where today meets tomorrow.