BrainChip and Andes Unite to Drive Edge AI Breakthroughs on RISC-V Platforms
April 24, 2025
News
Laguna Hills, California. BrainChip Holdings Ltd released information it is now integrating Andes Technology’s RISC-V cores with its NPUs. According to the press release, the companies will exhibit BrainChip’s Akida AKD1500 on Andes’ QiLai Voyager Board and AndesCore AX45MP 64-bit multicore CPU IP at Andes RISC-V Con 2025 in San Jose, Calif. April 29 and in Hsinchu, Taiwan June 10.
“We consistently search for ways to grow adoption of RISC-V solutions across an ever-increasing number of use cases,” said Dr. Charlie Su, CTO and President at Andes Technology. “By working with BrainChip and integrating the Akida IP into our QiLai Voyager platform, we better enable developers with opportunities to develop RISC-V-based solutions optimized for edge AI workloads and capabilities.”
The AKD1500 supports efficient, digital, and event-based AI solutions that suit sensor-level and sensor-balanced needs in AI, automotive, security, and processor applications.
Andes’ QiLai SoC and Voyager development board, combined with BrainChip’s Akida, streamline the development process for advanced RISC-V applications, delivering a high-performance, integrated edge AI compute solution that supports the growth of the RISC-V ecosystem.
The Voyager board features BrainChip’s AKD1500 in an M.2 form factor, delivering 0.7 TOPS+ of event-based AI. It operates below 250mW and delivers CNN-level performance with much lower compute needs, offering a smart solution for RISC-V integration.
The Andes QiLai SoC chip features a quad-core RISC-V AX45MP cluster. The AndesCore AX45MP is a superscalar, multicore design featuring a shared Level-2 cache, a coherence manager and a Memory Management Unit (MMU) to support Linux-based applications.
Featuring an I/O Coherency Port (IOCP), the AX45MP streamlines communication with high-speed components such as GPUs, NPUs, and Gigabit Ethernet, by enabling direct DMA access to its cache and memory subsystem. With TSMC’s 7nm technology at its core, the AX45MP clocks up to 2.2 GHz on QiLai SoC.
“As a pioneer in ultra-low power AI processing, our Akida technology integrates with RISC-V to enable efficient, intelligent compute at the edge,” said Steve Brightfield, CMO at BrainChip. “Showcasing these attributes through the integration of the AKD1500 with Andes QiLai platform at RISC-V Con 2025, ideally demonstrates how these solutions can be used in production SoCs to provide next-generation breakthroughs.”
For more information, visit https://bit.ly/brainchip-andes.
Chad Cox. Production Editor, Embedded Computing Design, has responsibilities that include handling the news cycle, newsletters, social media, and advertising. Chad graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a B.A. in Cultural and Analytical Literature.
