OpenPOWER Foundation names winners of Microwatt design challenge
OpenPOWER Foundation and ChipFoundry selected three winning entries in the Microwatt Design Challenge, highlighting completed community design work and a plan to move those designs into physical hardware.
The Microwatt Momentum Hackathon drew more than 300 registered teams and invited participation from hardware engineers, students, researchers, and developers within the OpenPOWER ecosystem; organizers said the event aimed to accelerate Microwatt-core development using fully open source tooling and to engage the foundations developer community for the open-source POWER ISA.
Winning proposals addressed a range of enhancements and applications that were submitted to the challenge, including projects focused on security, sensor uses, computational accelerators for Artificial Intelligence (AI), embedded edge applications, and tooling improvements. The three selected entries were described as: an extensible, open source framework for generating parameterizable system-on-chips based on the Microwatt POWER Central Processing Unit (CPU) and the LiteX ecosystem; an on-chip hardware debugging platform built around the Microwatt SoC; and an integration of an Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) Fabric generated with the OpenFPGA Framework with the Microwatt CPU.
A panel of industry experts evaluated submissions using criteria that included design completeness, prompt documentation when AI was used, code quality, verification coverage, and design technical merit. The organizers said the majority of registered teams submitted proposals and that the winning designs would be produced as packaged parts and evaluation boards for distribution to the design teams.
“The outstanding design submissions serve as validation for the comprehensive, high-performance open source toolchain available for the OpenPOWER ISA and Microwatt Core,” said James Kulina, executive director of the OpenPOWER Foundation. “Together with ChipFoundry, we established an open design flow designed to accelerate community innovation and facilitate the delivery of novel, impactful open designs. We warmly welcome the three winning submissions into the OpenPOWER ecosystem.”
“The Microwatt Design Challenge embodies our core mission: to make cutting-edge innovation in silicon accessible to everyone with a great idea,” said Jeff DiCorpo, chief executive officer of ChipFoundry. “We are thrilled to partner with the OpenPOWER Foundation to not only host this event but to commit to fabricating these three winning designs. Delivering packaged parts and evaluation boards to the winners validates the power of the open source flow and underscores our dedication to accelerating the next generation of open hardware developers.”
ChipFoundry will fabricate the three winning designs and will deliver packaged parts and evaluation boards to the winning teams, and other entrants with qualifying designs will receive a free evaluation board.