By Greg Gao

China’s SoC chip provider Artosyn(酷芯微电子) unveiled the world’s first 150M-7GHz full-band communication SoC AR8030 on November 30 at a RISC-V industry forum. It is based on Alibaba chip arm T-Head’s RISC-V CPU core, JW Insights reported.

AR8030 uses Artosyn’s in-house AR-Link technology and realizes ultra-long-distance transmission that is more than four times that of similar competing products. Through technologies such as automatic switching frequency points, it solves the problem that wireless transmission is susceptible to interference in the communication industry.

Established in July 2011, Artosyn based in Shanghai builds its AR8030 on T-Head’s RISC-V architecture. It has enriched China’s RISC-V ecosystem and contributed to the country’s semiconductor self-sufficiency efforts, said an industry observer.

Shen Bo, co-founder and CTO of Artosyn, said that different transmission scenarios and application fields have diverse requirements for wireless transmission. With the full-band solution, the AR8030 can better meet indoor/outdoor scenarios, different transmission distances and rates, and different power consumption requirements. It has good adaptability worldwide. In drones, the effective transmission distance of AR8030 can reach more than 10 kilometers, and the connection failure rate is reduced by more than 95%.

The overall performance improvement of AR8030 is inseparable from the various high-performance modules integrated by Artosyn, among which the CPU core is also one of the most important. The AR8030 adopts the RISC-V CPU architecture, it is the first product launched by Artosyn and Alibaba T-Head based on RISC-V.

The product launch of AR8030 was held at the 2nd Dishuihu Lake RISC-V Industry Forum” in Shanghai on November 30 against a backdrop of rapid developments of RISC-V architecture in both IP and the ecosystem.

Shen Bo pointed out that Artosyn has been paying attention to the RISC-V architecture for many years. The company learned about Alibaba’s ecosystem advantages last year during its cooperation with T-Head. Meanwhile, the new generation of communication chip AR8030 needs an MCU-level processor. After evaluation, the company found that T-Head’s RISC-V architecture matches its needs in all aspects of performance. 

Relying on its three core technologies of intelligent perception, intelligent computing, and transmission, Artosyn provides high-performance and low-power chips and related tool chain solutions. Its products are mainly used in many fields such as security, smart hardware, and intelligent vehicles.

Since 2014, more than 50% of the world's high-end drones have adopted Artosyn's image transmission solution, and its edge intelligent SoC products has also achieved mass shipments, said the company.