[HN Gopher] NASA selects SiFive and makes RISC-V the go-to ecosy... ___________________________________________________________________ NASA selects SiFive and makes RISC-V the go-to ecosystem for future missions Author : georgelyon Score : 377 points Date : 2022-09-06 17:57 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.sifive.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.sifive.com) | jvanderbot wrote: | For context: "This contract is part of NASA's High-Performance | Space Computing project". I used to work with the HPSC leads and | paid attention to it. This is one of _many_ parallel threads for | next-gen computing, including snapdragon and others. Yes, it will | be rad-hard. That was a program requirement and is mentioned in | the press release. As such, it fits a particular mission profile. | | There is no existing compulsion for missions to use HPSC. This is | a technology development program seeking to meet the requirements | of missions. It's great news they converged on an architecture! | | As part of their development, HPSC folks will seek mission | partners for tech demos. Then, missions will voluntarily (or with | some light compulsion) adopt the technology based on the growing | heritage and mission need. | jakedata wrote: | I'd love to see an implementation in silicon carbide so we could | drop it on Venus, wait for it to bounce a few times and then | start exploring. | | https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-radio-we-could-send-to-hell | babypuncher wrote: | I always wondered why NASA never sent any surface probes to | Venus, until I read about the insane engineering (and lots of | trial and error) that went into the Soviet Union's Venera | program. Despite all that effort, the successful Venera probes | only lasted minutes on the surface before failing. | giantrobot wrote: | The fact a lander is only going to return an hour (at best) | of science data is why NASA hasn't bothered with Venus. | There's a low chance of initial success and then no real | opportunity for a mission extension if things actually go | well. A Mars lander returns a lot more science per dollar | than a Venus lander will. | jakedata wrote: | I think a larger mission with some sort of airship dropping | little science packages would yield quite a trove of data | without the entire mission burning up in an hour. Hopefully | the success of the little Martian helicopter gives mission | planners something to think about. -edited to add, | something like a molten salt battery could travel to Venus | completely inert and only become active as it warms, also | acting as a heat sink. | [deleted] | garblegarble wrote: | The article (nor the product page for the X280) doesn't say | whether these chips are radiation hardened, or whether NASA is | now more comfortable with software solutions to the difficulties | of reliable computation in space. | | If the latter, that seems (to a layperson) quite exciting, since | more local processing capabilities will hopefully lead to more | efficient use of the very limited radio bandwidth these missions | have available at such vast distances. | jpm_sd wrote: | SiFive is fabless. Looks like they will be collaborating with | Microchip on actual production. | | https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-next-generati... | | https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/embedded-revol... | mzs wrote: | I see Microchip doing nothing but ARM in this space and only | SiFive folks quoted in their PR: | | https://www.microchip.com/en-us/products/microcontrollers- | an... | jpm_sd wrote: | This lays it out more explicitly: | | https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/microchip-to-develop-next- | ge... | | "NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has selected Microchip to | develop the High-Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) | processor that will provide at least 100 times the | computational capacity of current spaceflight computers for | all types of future space missions, from planetary | exploration to lunar and Mars surface missions. | | The radiation hardened, fault tolerant processor will be | based on 12 instantiations of the X280 RISC-V core from | SiFive and will be used in a series of ruggedised radiation | tolerant single board computers." | | Microsemi (acquired by Microchip) has built RISC-V hardware | in the past: | | https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/iot/article/2 | 1... | mzs wrote: | Thank you, that was the missing piece. | tablespoon wrote: | > The article (nor the product page for the X280) doesn't say | whether these chips are radiation hardened, or whether NASA is | now more comfortable with software solutions to the | difficulties of reliable computation in space. | | > If the latter, that seems (to a layperson) quite exciting, | since more local processing capabilities will hopefully lead to | more efficient use of the very limited radio bandwidth these | missions have available at such vast distances. | | Is that either/or, though? I could imagine building a probe | with a radiation hardened central processor (or two), plus a | non-radiation hardened "accelerator" CPU that's not considered | mission critical. The "accelerator" could be tasked with things | like pre-transmission data analysis/triage, and if it fails the | mission could continue without feature (like Galileo continued | without its high-gain antenna). | | Though the value of that might be less than it seems at first | look: New Horizons had literal years of time to transmit its | data back to Earth. | silasdavis wrote: | What is radiation hardening of chips? | | Stuff on the outside to absorb? Different band gaps in the | silicon? | Jtsummers wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening | | Larger node, different substrate, shielding, and other | things. | silasdavis wrote: | Thanks. Is this always an energetic issue, like the bit | gets flipped or is it about long term material changes? | jpgvm wrote: | Both but primarily the former. | duskwuff wrote: | SiFive X280 is an IP core, not an IC. The design itself isn't | inherently radiation-hard, but there's nothing preventing it | from being manufactured on a radiation-hard process. | IshKebab wrote: | There are definitely things you can change in the design to | make it more radiation-proof. ECC memory for example, logic | sanity checks etc. | mmaunder wrote: | And yes, having more onboard processing will lead to more | pre-processing capabilities for data before it's | sent/received via precious and limited DSN bandwidth. Could | also allow for a low quality preview and selective-send mode | of operation. | noselasd wrote: | There certainly things you can do in the design to be | radiation hardened, it's not just in the manufacturing. The | LEON [1] processor, initally designed by ESA for space | missions incorporates quite many countermeasures in its IP | core. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEON | adgjlsfhk1 wrote: | In general, the design has gone towards have 3 to 5 redundant | non-hardened computers with ECC that compare results and if one | computer disagrees, restart it. Radiation hardening makes sense | when computers cost tens of thousands, and weigh 10s of pounds, | but now they are cheap, and only weigh a few grams. | qbasic_forever wrote: | The last mars rover and its drone run embedded Linux, the JWST | runs javascript (not node.js though!). NASA is already working | with much more powerful and capable software stacks. | noselasd wrote: | Well almost. The Perseverance rover runs vxworks, like most | if not all of its predecessors. Ingenuity (the | drone/helicopter) does indeed run linux. | [deleted] | lizknope wrote: | Where are you reading that? | | The Perseverance rover uses the VxWorks real time OS from | Wind River Systems and the same RAD750 PowerPC processor that | NASA has been using for the last 20 years. The rover is | designed to last and operate a long time. | | The Ingenuity drone helicopter uses an off the shelf Qualcomm | Snapdragon 801 and Linux. While NASA wants it to last a long | time that was not part of its main design. | | https://www.pcmag.com/news/linux-is-now-on-mars-thanks-to- | na... | pkaye wrote: | The helicopter uses an RAD hardened FPGA for handling the | flight computation while the Snapdragon handles the less | critical stuff. I'm guessing if the Snapdragon faults out, | the flight computer will slowly descent and go idle. | ThinkBeat wrote: | except that the more complexity you add and make available | the more things can break and go wrong. | | I imagine it is an interesting balancing act. | _joel wrote: | More over, Inginuity uses COTS altimeter from Sparkfun, it's | still working! | robocat wrote: | COTS = Commercial Off The Shelf | deelowe wrote: | > the JWST runs javascript | | What?! I'd like to know more about this. Does it have GC? I | just can't fathom that being the case... | dotnet00 wrote: | Its scripting engine for running commands sent from the | ground is based on Javascript. So all the important stuff | is done in native code, but the orders are taken in JS. | lifthrasiir wrote: | See [1] (HN discussion: [2]). According to the paper [3] it | looks like that it does have a GC and its resource usage is | limited by other means. | | [1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/18/23206110/james-webb- | space... | | [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32519918 | | [3] https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/resources/ISIMmanuscript.pdf# | page=... | acchow wrote: | > If you're still worried, do note that the Space | Telescope Science Institute's document mentions that the | script processor itself is written in C++ | | So they decided on Javascript back in 2006 and it uses an | interpreter/runtime written in C++. Which runtime is | this? | sanxiyn wrote: | It is Nombas ScriptEase. The author updated the homepage | after >10 years due to interest from JWST. | | https://brent-noorda.com/nombas/us/ | deelowe wrote: | Wow. Thanks! | nequo wrote: | In an earlier era, NASA also sent Lisp to Mars.[1] And my | understanding is that they sent it with GC. | | [1] https://corecursive.com/lisp-in-space-with-ron-garret/ | tibbydudeza wrote: | The rover still uses the radiation hardened PowerPC (RAD750 | circa 2001 = 301K per CPU) but the drone uses a Snapdragon | 801 SoC - it was not considered mission critical so the team | could use off the shelf hardware. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750 | UltraViolence wrote: | The MARCO Mars satellites also used COTS components and | computers, all running Linux. The worked great AFAIK. They | even had a cheap COTS breakout-board camera which snapped a | couple of pictures of Mars! | Someone wrote: | Related NASA press release (I think): | https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-next- | generati.... | | That seems to say it's for a radiation-hardened design: | | _"In 2021, NASA solicited proposals for a trade study for an | advanced radiation-hardened computing chip with the intention | of selecting one vendor for development. This contract is part | of NASA's High-Performance Space Computing project"_ | | They also say: | | _"The processor will enable spacecraft computers to perform | calculations up to 100 times faster than today's state-of-the- | art space computers"_ | | and | | _"Our current spaceflight computers were developed almost 30 | years ago,"_ | | That, for me, also points towards a radiation-hardened design. | If it isn't, 100 times faster than 30 years ago is an | incredibly low hurdle to clear. | | Also, it's a $50 million firm-fixed-price contract. I have no | idea whether that's a sharp price for this, so can't judge how | much risk SiFive takes on with this. | UltraViolence wrote: | The newer designs aren't actually RAD-hardened, but fault | tolerant. | | It's physically impossible to produce RAD-hard semiconductors | at the small scale we're currently producing high-end CPU's | with. | | I read this in an article somewhere but don't have the link. | magicalhippo wrote: | Seems it's not quite as dire as one might imagine, for | example the DAHLIA project is using ST's 28nm FDSOI | process[1]. | | In any case, I found this[2] article interesting and | illuminating, which goes into different aspects of | radiation hardening, including how the "old = safe" isn't | strictly true. | | [1]: https://dahlia-h2020.eu/about-project/ | | [2]: https://habr.com/en/post/518366/ | lizknope wrote: | NASA currently uses the RAD750 which is based on a PowerPC | 750 that was new in Macs in 1997. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750 | inamberclad wrote: | I'm ready to throw our old, expensive, and fairly slow flight | computers with no drivers and terrible lead time to the curb and | get on board with something new. Especially if an open ISA means | that our systems will be more portable and faster to develop. | smoldesu wrote: | It really seems like the perfect storm. Hopefully other folks | like NASA will get comfortable jumping on the RISC train now | that their only option isn't licensing from ARM. | giantrobot wrote: | NASA's been on the RISC train for nearly 30 years. They've | been using the RAD750 since the turn of the century. Before | the RAD750 they used the RAD6000, a radiation hardened POWER1 | chip. They also use the Mongoose rad hard MIPS chips in a | number of orbiters. | gumby wrote: | There are already companies building hardware and software | stacks so you can concentrate on the part you care about. I | think this is great! | | Also excited to see RISC V gaining some acceptance in space. | vaxman wrote: | RISC-V is NASA bad? | | "Launch aborted, whenever we access the pressurization control | we're getting an 'ISA not implemented in this version of the | core' error from the controller that arrived overnight. They must | have received the wrong version of the chip and didn't catch it | in the test rig we gave them 6 years ago." #roflmao | temptemptemp111 wrote: | gchadwick wrote: | I am a little surprised to see this. I'd imagine NASA would chose | a CPU with an already proven track record (especially for | something so wide ranging, the press release says it expected to | be used for 'virtually every future space mission, from planetary | exploration to lunar and Mars surface missions'. This is a new | design from SiFive and there's not a huge amount of SiFive IP | around yet to demonstrate how good (or otherwise) their | verification is. Running into a hardware bug whilst your CPU is | in space is not good. | | Still good SiFive have convinced NASA otherwise, they must have a | pretty strong verification story behind the scenes. | zitterbewegung wrote: | The whole point of choosing SiFive over anything else is to | encourage competition. | | SpaceX is similar while they are very successful it also | encourages competition in a space that really needed it and now | there are so many other companies doing smaller launches that | don't make business sense to SpaceX. | UltraViolence wrote: | I agree. NASA has hit the jackpot by using fixed-price | contracts from vendors which don't have a legacy track record | from the Apollo days. | | The Cost-plus contracts have made them fat and lazy and | somewhat remind me of that Bugs Bunny cartoon where the cats | don't mind the mice emptying the fridge. | | NASA is taking a small risk, but the rewards can, as SpaceX | has demonstrated, be HUGE. | omegalulw wrote: | I absolutely love that NASA is doing this AND encouraging the | RISC-V ecosystem. Maybe it's impossible, I don't know, but if | we have an open soruce alternative for hardware with the kind | of reach that Linux has in software i think that's the best | way forward. | mlindner wrote: | The alternative is the ancient PowerPC-based RAD series of | which the most recent incarnation is now almost 2 decades old. | [deleted] | pinewurst wrote: | NASA is partitioned between the (IMHO limited) parts that | actually do stuff and the golly-geewhiz-PR stuff. People who | are planning next gen planetary missions are considering | trusted, proven rad hard platforms. This is just PR to distract | in its own small way from the SLS debacle. | permalac wrote: | What debacle? Is it dead? | pinewurst wrote: | Money spent vs results over time. Results excluding Boeing | & subcontractor revenue. SLS was originally sold as cost | effective reuse of existing SSMEs combined with relatively | simple tankage to get a cheap large booster. Against those | metrics it's a debacle, unclear if it ever will fly, | especially more than once. | mjevans wrote: | While I agree about SLS, and I'm also hopeful about | SpaceX's Starship stack, I'd really like to see a | successful test. They're working on it, but just imagine | how much closer they could have been with even a fraction | of this SLS boondoggle contributed. | | If NASA is supposed to be a multi-state grant to the | sciences, I'd much rather they focus the funding where it | will deliver results that benefit the public commons. The | jobs program for obsolete and finicky space tech is a | dis-service to the public and even the workers who's | skills are in questionably useful specialties. | adolph wrote: | Compared to Starliner and its move from Atlas V to Vulcan | [0], SLS is a paragon of incremental success. | Additionally, to be fair to SLS, many of the problems | associated with the program have to do with the mobile | launch platform, which was built for the previous | Constellation program and required considerable refit for | SLS. [1] | | 0. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/nasa-will-pay- | boeing... | | 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_Ground_Syste | ms#Lau... | ramesh31 wrote: | > Against those metrics it's a debacle, unclear if it | ever will fly, especially more than once. | | Not to mention a national security nightmare. Imagine a | world without the COTS program, where we would most | likely still be waiting for whatever version of Starliner | that we finally got. We would right now be reliant on | Russia to return our astronauts to earth from the ISS. | Can you even imagine what we'd have to give up for their | safety? | crote wrote: | The SLS was pretty much designed by Congress. Design | choices were made primarily to keep jobs in plants which | were previously used for Space Shuttle parts. | | With its impending first launch, a lot of discussion is | popping up again about it arguably being way too slow to | develop, overly expensive, and not fit for the intended | mission profile. | Jtsummers wrote: | > This is just PR to distract in its own small way from the | SLS debacle. | | You're implying a degree of coordination which organizations | the size of NASA just don't have. Artemis has had two | scrubbed launches, they didn't put out this announcement to | distract from it. I doubt someone went over to SiFive and | said, "Hey, help us distract from the Artemis I launch | problems and we'll give you a nice contract." | ibrault wrote: | Yes, it's a ridiculous claim. HSPC has been in the works | for several years now, and is ran thru JPL which is | completely unaffiliated with Artemis. | pinewurst wrote: | I don't think coordination has to be explicit. Seeing meh | PR and thinking, "hey maybe we should step up the advanced | technology press releases" is enough. As for NASA | contracts, it's almost harder to name someone who doesn't | have even a tiny one, even cranks. Also it's not like 2 | Artemis failures are in a vacuum - it's the culmination of | a decade of failure and misspent funds. | tablespoon wrote: | >>> This is just PR to distract in its own small way from | the SLS debacle. | | > Seeing meh PR and thinking, "hey maybe we should step | up the advanced technology press releases" is enough. As | for NASA contracts, it's almost harder to name someone | who doesn't have even a tiny one, even cranks. | | Except _no one_ cares about the instruction set of space | computers, except a small cadre of computer geeks. | | A story no one cares about is a bad thing to use as a | distraction. | pinewurst wrote: | I agree with you. I meant it as part of the flux of NASA | tech press releases. It could be some CPU thing, it could | be a magic space drive, it could be the official kitty | litter of the moon base. ;) | IgorPartola wrote: | You are overthinking it. | hajile wrote: | SiFive is a new company (with backing from large companies like | Qualcomm), but the people working there are industry experts | with decades of experience who know the value of verification | to both designers and customers. | tibbydudeza wrote: | Interestingly SiFive RISC V core was licensed by Tenstorrent (Jim | Keller AI startup) for their designs. | FullyFunctional wrote: | True but know also that Tenstorrent is working on their own | superscalar OoO chip as well. | tibbydudeza wrote: | They probably need a "director" CPU with a familiar | programming interface to orchestrate their AI engines ???. | morcheeba wrote: | Interesting! ESA has been using a custom SPARC V8 rad hard | architecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEON | | I'm currently using a dual-core 90 MHz processor that is | relatively advanced and has good performance for many | applications. It has error-correcting memories (SDRAM, cache, | registers) and a lot of integrated peripherals (spacewire, | serial, ethernet, 1553, CCSDS) that help reduce board complexity. | | Next up in the pipeline is an 8-core 1 GHz monster: | https://www.gaisler.com/index.php/products/components/gr765 | pkaye wrote: | NASA has mostly been using a PowerPC. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750 | [deleted] | shrubble wrote: | Are any of these boards available for regular people at a | regular person kind of price? Or is it 1000s of USD for an | evaluation board? | UltraViolence wrote: | I wonder if NASA has a clue that RISC-V's ISA is open-source but | SiFive's designs certainly aren't. | Jtsummers wrote: | You can't launch an ISA into space and expect it to do | anything. At some point, hardware has to be designed and built | based on that ISA. | UltraViolence wrote: | Then what advantage does it have over ARM or x64? The ISA | being open doesn't seem to make any difference at all. | babypuncher wrote: | Nonsense; I printed out a copy of the AGC instruction set | reference, stuffed it in one of my model rockets, and it | turned into a Saturn V mid-flight. | [deleted] | neilv wrote: | It's great to see parts of the US government embracing RISC-V and | SiFive. | | I hope NASA and others using RISC-V also take the opportunity, of | a bit of a fresh start, to push for more of an _open hardware_ | platform around the CPUs (chipsets, devices, etc.). | 1-6 wrote: | I hope that's the intention. Silicon Valley pretty much | sprouted with military funding. Unfortunately, long lead times | are impossible in this new economy and research scientists will | get scouted before NASA gets to increase their pay. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-06 23:00 UTC)