Graphical Processing Unit

In the context of computing, a graphical processing unit (GPU) is a co-processor to process graphical data.

RISC-V GPUs

There are GPUs that use open standards like the RISC-V open ISA standard, instead of other ISAs like x86 or arm.

Take into account that the fact that a GPU uses an open ISA does not necessarily imply that its design or firmware is open source.

Early examples of GPUs using RISC-V:

• Think Silicon’s NEOX-V, first announced in 2019
• RV64X

GPU Software Platforms

GPU software platforms featured on this post:

• CUDA
• ROCm

CUDA is a proprietary parallel computing platform developed by NVidia.

ROCm is software stack for graphics processing unit (GPU) programming by AMD.

You might also be interested in…

• Computer Processors
• Computer Hardware

External references

• RISC-V GPUs
  • NEOX-V
    • Jean-Luc Aufranc; “Think Silicon NEOX|V is the First RISC-V ISA based GPU“; CNX Software
  • RV64X
    • John Peddie; “RV64X: A Free Open Source GPU for RISC-V“; EE Times