Croc: An End-to-End Open-Source Extensible RISC-V MCU Platform to Democratize Silicon
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866915142303744000 |
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| author | Sauter, Phillippe Benz, Thomas Scheffler, Paul Pochert, Hannah Wüthrich, Luisa Povišer, Martin Muheim, Beat Gürkaynak, Frank K. Benini, Luca |
| author_facet | Sauter, Phillippe Benz, Thomas Scheffler, Paul Pochert, Hannah Wüthrich, Luisa Povišer, Martin Muheim, Beat Gürkaynak, Frank K. Benini, Luca |
| contents | Ensuring a continuous and growing influx of skilled chip designers and a smooth path from education to innovation are key goals for several national and international "Chips Acts". Silicon democratization can greatly benefit from end-to-end (from silicon technology to software) free and open-source (OS) platforms. We present Croc, an extensible RISC-V microcontroller platform explicitly targeted at hands-on teaching and innovation. Croc features a streamlined OS synthesis and an end-to-end OS implementation flow, ensuring full, unconstrained access to the design, the design automation tools, and the implementation technology. Croc uses the industry-proven, open-source CVE2 core, implementing the RV32I(EMC) instruction set architecture (ISA), enabling students to define and implement their own ISA extensions. MLEM, a tapeout of Croc in IHP's open 130 nm node completed in eight weeks by a team of just two students, demonstrates the platform's viability for hands-on teaching in schools, universities, or even on a self-education path. In spring 2025, ETH Zurich will utilize Croc for its curricular VLSI class, involving up to 80 students, producing up to 40 OS application-specific integrated circuit layouts, and completing up to five student-led system-on-chip tapeouts. The lecture notes and exercises are already available under a Creative Commons license. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_05090 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Croc: An End-to-End Open-Source Extensible RISC-V MCU Platform to Democratize Silicon Sauter, Phillippe Benz, Thomas Scheffler, Paul Pochert, Hannah Wüthrich, Luisa Povišer, Martin Muheim, Beat Gürkaynak, Frank K. Benini, Luca Hardware Architecture Computers and Society Ensuring a continuous and growing influx of skilled chip designers and a smooth path from education to innovation are key goals for several national and international "Chips Acts". Silicon democratization can greatly benefit from end-to-end (from silicon technology to software) free and open-source (OS) platforms. We present Croc, an extensible RISC-V microcontroller platform explicitly targeted at hands-on teaching and innovation. Croc features a streamlined OS synthesis and an end-to-end OS implementation flow, ensuring full, unconstrained access to the design, the design automation tools, and the implementation technology. Croc uses the industry-proven, open-source CVE2 core, implementing the RV32I(EMC) instruction set architecture (ISA), enabling students to define and implement their own ISA extensions. MLEM, a tapeout of Croc in IHP's open 130 nm node completed in eight weeks by a team of just two students, demonstrates the platform's viability for hands-on teaching in schools, universities, or even on a self-education path. In spring 2025, ETH Zurich will utilize Croc for its curricular VLSI class, involving up to 80 students, producing up to 40 OS application-specific integrated circuit layouts, and completing up to five student-led system-on-chip tapeouts. The lecture notes and exercises are already available under a Creative Commons license. |
| title | Croc: An End-to-End Open-Source Extensible RISC-V MCU Platform to Democratize Silicon |
| topic | Hardware Architecture Computers and Society |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.05090 |