PolarFire SoC

Lowest Power, Multi-Core RISC-V SoC FPGA

Overview

The PolarFire^® SoC FPGA family delivers an unparalleled combination of low power consumption, thermal efficiency and defense grade security for smart, connected systems.

It's the first system on chip (SoC) field-programmable gate array (FPGA) with a deterministic, coherent RISC-V CPU cluster and a deterministic L2 memory subsystem enabling Linux and real-time applications. Built on the award-winning, mid-range, low power PolarFire FPGA Architecture, PolarFire SoC devices deliver up to 50% lower power than alternative FPGAs, span from 25k to 460k logic elements (LEs) and feature 12.7G transceivers. EEMBC CoreMark^®-Pro benchmarks chart overpower consumed illustrates the PolarFire SoC low-power advantage.
Early access program for PolarFire SoC is open. Email to PolarFireSoC@microchip.com to find out more.

Addressing Key Market Opportunities

PolarFire SoC is ideally suited for secure, power-efficient compute in a wide range of applications within Imaging, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning (AI/ML), Internet of Things (IoT), Industrial Automation, Automotive, Aerospace and Defense, Wireline Access Networks & Cellular Infrastructure.


Imaging / AI / ML	Internet of Things	Industrial Automation

Automotive	Defense	Communications

Getting Started

Choose a Platform

Microchip Evaluation Kits	Mi-V Partner Boards

Choose a target to view the compatible reference material

PolarFire SoC Icicle Kit	PolarFire SoC Model

Choose from the range of Microchip targets The PolarFire SoC Icicle kit runs Linux out of the box and offers evaluation of PCIe RP, GbE, CAN, USB, UART, SPI, I2C, Debug and Trace. Price: $489. Renode provides a simulation model for PolarFire SoC and Mi-V soft-CPUs and can be used to debug firmware. Renode is bundled with SoftConsole v6.x and can be downloaded for free.

Download the reference material compatible with your target

PolarFire SoC Icicle Kit
Category	Microchip / Mi-V	Links
Hardware		MPFS-ICICLE-KIT-ES
Development Tools		PolarFire SoC MSS Configurator Libero SoC Design Suite SoftConsole Development Environment
Development Tools		Adacore GnatPro (Coming soon) Antmicro Renode (Integrated with SoftConsole) Greenhills Multi IDE (Coming soon) IAR Embedded Workbench (Coming soon)
Operating System		Yocto Linux BSP Buildroot Linux BSP
Operating System		Mentor Linux WindRiver Linux FreeBSD (Coming soon)
Real-Time Operating System		FreeRTOS Zephyr (Coming soon)
Real-Time Operating System		uVelocity from GreenHills Software Nucleus from Mentor VxWorks from WindRiver
Bare-metal SDK		Github
Hart Software Services		Github
Middleware		seL4 from Dornerworks Multi-zone Security from Hex-Five Quantum-resistant security SDK & DOME from Veridify Security wolfSSL (Coming soon)
Documentation		Documentation

Renode
Reference Material	Description
Renode Webinar Series	View Getting started videos and register for upcoming Renode Webinar Series
SoftConsole Release Notes	SoftConsole and Renode installation instructions and release notes
Renode Website	Complete documentation on Renode
Target: SoftConsole	SoftConsole Software and documentation

Documentation

Product Information

PolarFire SoC Brochure

06/2020

Datasheet

PolarFire SoC Advance Product Overview	09/2020
PolarFire SoC Advance Datasheet	12/2019

White Papers

PolarFire SoC CPU Performance Benchmarking White Paper
Download PDF, View HTML

12/2020

Errata

ER0219: PolarFire SoC FPGA: Engineering Samples (ES) Devices

07/2020

Power Estimation

PolarFire SoC Power Estimator	09/2020
UG0897: PolarFire and PolarFire SoC FPGA Power Estimator User Guide	09/2020

Hardware Documentation

UG0882: PolarFire SoC FPGA ICICLE Kit User Guide	10/2020
PolarFire SoC Icicle Kit Schematics (Preliminary)	03/2020
PolarFire SoC Icicle Kit BRD File (Preliminary)	03/2020
UG0901: PolarFire SoC FPGA Board Design Guidelines User Guide	12/2019

User Guides

PolarFire SoC Software Development and Tool Flow User Guide Download PDF , View HTML	09/2020
UG0880: PolarFire SoC FPGA Microprocessor Subsystem (MSS) User Guide	09/2020
PolarFire SoC Register Map	09/2020
PolarFire SoC Standalone MSS Configurator User Guide Download PDF , View HTML	09/2020
Libero SoC v12.5 Design Flow User Guide for PolarFire	09/2020
FlashPro Express v12.5 User Guide for all the families	09/2020
UG0886: PolarFire SoC FPGA Peripherals User Guide	09/2020
UG0888: PolarFire SoC FPGA Trace and Debug User Guide	04/2020
UG0890: PolarFire SoC FPGA Power-Up and Resets User Guide	10/2020
UG0904: PolarFire SoC FPGA Gigabit Ethernet MAC User Guide	04/2020
UG0905: PolarFire SoC FPGA System Services User Guide	04/2020
UG0906: PolarFire SoC FPGA DDR Memory Controller User Guide	09/2020
UG0912: PolarFire SoC FPGA Fabric User Guide	04/2020
UG0913: PolarFire SoC FPGA Clocking Resources User Guide	09/2020
UG0914: PolarFire SoC FPGA Programming User Guide	09/2020
UG0915: PolarFire SoC FPGA Transceiver User Guide	09/2020
UG0916: PolarFire SoC FPGA IO User Guide	09/2020
UG0918: PolarFire SoC FPGA Security User Guide	09/2020
UG0920: PolarFire SoC FPGA PCI Express User Guide	09/2020
UG0939: White Balance User Guide	12/2020

Application Notes

AC489: Booting Linux and Running User Applications on PolarFire SoC FPGA	10/2020
AC492: PolarFire SoC FPGA System Services Application Note	10/2020

PolarFire SoC Industrial IBIS Models (All Devices)

PolarFire SoC GPIO Industrial IBIS Model	12/2019
PolarFire SoC HSIO Industrial IBIS Model	12/2019
PolarFire SoC MSSIO Industrial IBIS Model	12/2019
PolarFire SoC Dedicated IO Industrial IBIS Model	12/2019
PolarFire IBIS-AMI Package	01/2020

Packaging

UG0902: PolarFire SoC FPGA Packaging and Pin Descriptions User Guide	09/2020
PolarFire SoC MPFS095T_MPFS095TS-FCVG484 EVAL Package Pin Assignment Table	08/2020
PolarFire SoC MPFS160T_MPFS160TS-FCVG484_EVAL Package Pin Assignment Table	08/2020
PolarFire SoC MPFS025T_MPFS025TS-FCVG484 EVAL Package Pin Assignment Table	08/2020
PolarFire SoC MPFS250T_MPFS250TS-FCVG484 Package Pin Assignment Table	12/2019
PolarFire SoC_MPFS250T_MPFS250TS-FCSG536_Package_Pin_Assignment_Table	06/2020
PolarFire SoC_MPFS250T_MPFS250TS-FCVG784_Package_Pin_Assignment_Table	06/2020
PolarFire SoC MPFS250T_MPFS250TS-FCG1152 Package Pin Assignment Table	12/2019
PolarFire_SoC_MPFS460T_MPFS460TS-FCG1152_Package_Pin_Assignment_Table	06/2020

Power Comparison

PolarFire SoC vs Competition SoC FPGAs (CoreMarks / W)

~25kLE SoC FPGAs
	At 1.05W, PolarFire SoC delivers 5.5k CoreMarks while competing SRAM based SoC FPGAs deliver 0 CoreMarks PolarFire SoC consumes up to 45% lower power at max output
~100kLE SoC FPGAs
	At 1.3W, PolarFire SoC delivers 6.5k CoreMarks while competing SRAM based SoC FPGAs deliver 0 CoreMarks PolarFire SoC consumes up to 55% lower power at 8k CoreMarks
~460kLE SoC FPGAs
	PolarFire SoC delivers 8k CoreMarks @ 2.05W while competing SRAM based SoC FPGAs deliver 0 CoreMarks PolarFire SoC consumes up to 65% lower power at 8k CoreMarks

Real-Time with Linux

Safety Critical, System Control and Security applications use the flexibility that Linux offers and need Real-Time Determinism to control hardware.


Safety Critical systems	AI / ML	Industrial IoT	Robotics	Smart Weapons and UAV

Typical SMP implementations may offer the flexibility of a rich operating systems but are terrible for running real-time systems needing deterministic performance.
SMP on Quad-core Cortex-A class processor	ISR execution times vary significantly

Designing a deterministic, Linux capable SoC requires a multi-dimensional approach needing architectural innovation, a coherent memory subsystem across cores and configurable branch prediction capabilities.
PolarFire SoC features a multi-core Linux capable processor that is coherent with the memory subsystem allowing a versatile mix of deterministic real-time systems and Linux in a single multi-core CPU cluster.

PolarFire SoC enables you to create a fully deterministic real-time system alongside Linux that executes on-time every time.

AMP Implementation on PolarFire SoC	The ISR execution times are deterministic

Security

Defense-grade Security

Security starts during silicon manufacturing and continues through system deployment and operations. Microchip’s PolarFire SoC FPGAs represent the industry’s most advanced secure programmable FPGAs.

Secure Hardware

Secure wafer-sort and packaging
Spectre and Meltdown immune CPUs

Design Security

DPA-resistant bitstream programming
Anti-tamper
DPA-resistant secure boot

Data Security

CRI DPA countermeasures pass-through license
DPA-resistant crypto-coprocessor

RISC-V Physical Memory Protection (PMP)

PolarFire SoC has PMP implemented in each of the processor cores. PMPs are used to enforce memory access restrictions in conjunction with machine's privilege state, i.e. Machine mode, Supervisor mode, and User mode.

Security Leadership

Features	PolarFire SoC	Competitor 1	Competitor 2	Competitor 3
TRNG	Hard-IP (SP800-90A CTR_DRBG-256; SP800-90B (draft) NRBG)	✖	✖	Soft-IP
AES	AES-128/192/256 (ECB, CBC, CTR, OFB, CFB, GCM, KeyWrap)	AES-256 (CBC)	AES-256 (CBC)	AES-256 (ECB, GCM)
SHA	SHA-1/224/256/384/512, Key Tree	SHA-256	SHA-256	SHA-384
HMAC	HMAC-SHA-1/224/256/384/512; GMAC-AES; CMAC-AES	HMAC-SHA2-256	HMAC-SHA2-256	✖
RSA	SigGen (ANSI X9.31, PKCS v1.5), SigVer (ANSI X9.31, PKCS v1.5)-1024/1536/2048/3072/4096	Soft-RSA –(2048), SigGen(PKCS v1.5), SigVer (PKCS v1.5)	Soft-RSA –(2048), SigGen(PKCS v1.5), SigVer (PKCS v1.5)	Software library: RSA primitive (2048)
ECDSA	KeyGen, KeyVer, SigGen & SigVer - NIST & Brainpool (P256/384/521); KAS - ECC CDH, PKG, PKV	✖	✖	✖
FFC	KAS - DH, DSA SigGen & SigVer (1024/1536/2048/3072/4096)	✖	✖	✖
Tamper Sense	Voltage, Temperature, Clock Frequency, Clock Glitch, Active Mesh	✖	✖	Only Voltage & Temperature
PUF	PUF protection for Secure Key storage (Secure Boot and Data communication)	✖	✖	For secure boot key
Bitstream Protection	DPA resistant Encrypted bit-stream programming	✖	✖	✔
DPA Resistance	DPA resistant hard crypto co-processor supporting all above Crypto algorithms	✖	✖	✖

Product Family

	Features	PolarFire SoC FPGA
	Features	MPFS025T	MPFS095T	MPFS160T	MPFS250T	MPFS460T
FPGA Fabric	k Logic Elements (4LUT + DFF)	23	93	161	254	461
	Math Blocks (18x18 MACC)	68	292	498	784	1420
	LSRAM Blocks (20k bit)	84	308	520	812	1460
	uSRAM Blocks (64x12)	204	876	1494	2352	4260
	Total RAM Mbits	1.8	6.7	11.3	17.6	31.6
	uPROM Kbits	194	387	415	470	553
	User DLL's/PLL's	8 each	8 each	8 each	8 each	8 each
High Speed IO	12.5 Gbps SERDES Lanes	4	4	8	16	20
High Speed IO	PCIe Gen2 End Points/Root Ports	2	2	2	2	2
Total FPGA IO	HSIO+GPIO	108	276	312	372	468
Total MSS IO	MSS IO	136	136	136	136	136
MSS DDR	Data Bus	16	32	32	32	32
Packaging	Type (Size, Pitch)	Total User I/O: MSS-IO / HSIO / GPIO / XCVRs
	FCSG325 (11x11, 11x14.5*, 0.5 mm)	102 / 32 / 48 / 2	102 / 32 / 48 / 2
	FCSG536 (16x16, 0.5 mm)		136 / 60 / 84 / 4	136 / 60 / 108 / 4	136 / 60 / 108 / 4
	FCVG484 (19x19, 0.8 mm)	136 / 60 / 48 / 4	136 / 60 / 84 / 4	136 / 60 / 84 / 4	136 / 60 / 84 / 4
	FCVG784 (23x23, 0.8 mm)		136 / 144 / 132 / 8	136 / 144 / 168 / 8	136 / 144 / 180 / 8
	FCG1152 (35x35, 1.0 mm)				136 / 144 / 228 / 16	136 / 180 / 288 / 20

Extended Commercial (0°C to 100°C) and Industrial (–40°C to 100°C) Temperature Support for all Die Package Combinations.

PolarFire SoC offers the Smallest Form Factors

PolarFire SoC FPGAs offer best-in-class form factors at 25k, 95k, 160k and 250k LEs.

PolarFireSoC Packages

Block Diagram

PolarFire SoC is based on the award winning PolarFire FPGA architecture and integrates a versatile, low-power, 64-bit, multi-core RISC-V processor subsystem.

Linux and Real-Time capable in a deterministic and coherent CPU cluster
Integrated DDR3/4, LPDDR3/4 controllers and Phy
Defense-grade Secure boot
SECDED on all memories

PolarFire SoC delivers industry's lowest power at mid-range densities with exceptional security and reliability.

Mi-V Ecosystem

		Adacore is the leading provider of commercial software solutions for Ada, C and C++, helping developers build safe, secure and reliable software that matters.
		Amazon FreeRTOS is open source and extends the FreeRTOS kernel with libraries making it easy to connect to cloud services and edge devices. Amazon FreeRTOS support is now available for RISC-V based MCUs.
		Antmicro delivers end-to-end hardware, software and FPGA design services for custom engineering projects as well as open source tools such as Renode simulation platform.
		ARIES Embedded offers hardware products (modular systems and custom designs), services for IP-development and software development (FreeRTOS, U-Boot, Linux) based on Microsemi's Polarfire FPGA and SoCs.
		Digital Core Technologies offers design services covering the entire Life Cycle of a product. This includes Hardware Designs (High Speed, High-Density Digital, Analog, Power and RF), Embedded Logic Ware and Embedded Software
		DornerWorks specializes in FPGA Design and Engineering, Embedded Software and Hardware Development. Their expertise includes designs for the Aerospace, Medical, Automotive and IoT markets.
		Emcraft is a leading provider of System-on-Module (SoM) solutions. They provide production-ready, self-maintained Linux BSPs and Software distributions for all of their SoM Solutions.
		Emdalo Technologies a software engineering development company specializing in delivering solutions in Embedded Systems, Machine Learning, AI, Information Security and IIoT Applications.
		Enclustra offers highly-integrated FPGA modules (SoM) and FPGA-optimized IP cores. and provides services covering the whole range of FPGA-based system development from high-speed hardware or HDL firmware through to embedded software.
		Express Logic provides comprehensive X-WARE IoT Platform for embedded developers targeting FPGAs. The THREADX RTOS has been ported to the RISC-V Soft CPU on the PolarFire MPF300-EVAL-KIT evaluation board.
		Greenhills is a key Mi-V ecosystem partner for Microchip and support PolarFire SoC FPGA, the industry’s first RISC-V based SoC FPGA, with their MULTI® IDE, Green Hills Probe V4 and µ-velOSity RTOS
		Hex Five Security, Inc. is the creator of MultiZone™ Security, the first trusted execution environment for RISC-V, which provides policy-based hardware-enforced separation for an unlimited number of security domains, with full control over data, code, peripherals and interrupts.
		IAR Embedded Workbench is an integrated development environment for building and debugging embedded applications using C and C++. The toolchain offers leading code quality, size and speed; extensive debug with simulator and hardware debugging support.
		Imperas supports Microsemi's RISC-V based SoC FPGAs with the Mi-V FreeRTOS Extendable Platform Kit (EPK), tools to help in development, porting, debug and test.
		Mentor enables embedded development for a variety of applications including automotive, industrial, smart energy, medical devices, and consumer electronics with their Linux products and Nucleus RTOS.
		Micrium provides high-quality embedded software components in the form of engineer-friendly source code coupled with unsurpassed documentation and customer support.
		Phytec is a leading provider of SoM solutions based on application processors and FPGAs. Phytec also offers services: systems integration, hardware and software design, mechanical design and manufacturing.
		SecureRF provides security solutions for embedded systems and wireless sensor technologies. SecureRF is a CompanionCore partner of Microsemi and offers optimized IP cores for Microsemi FPGAs.
		SiFive builds customized silicon based on the open-source RISC-V ISA. SiFive offers customizable RISC-V CPU Core IP for use in Microsemi FPGAs reducing time-to-market and cost.
		Sundance DSP is a world-wide supplier of high-performance DSP and FPGA processor boards (SoM) and I/O modules for high performance, parallel processing applications such as imaging, radar, sonar, industrial control and military.
		Technolution provides tailor-made solutions such as Fault Tolerant RISC-V soft cores, High speed Interfaces, BSP and Drivers, Real-time Video transport, and High-end Board design.
		Trenz Electronic develops, manufactures, integrates and sells FPGA and SoC modules (SoM) with main focus on application specific HDL and FPGA design, hardware and software development.
		UltraSoC is deeply involved in defining the debug architecture for RISC-V standards. UltraSoC is the first company to offer a RISC-V processor trace solution, supporting both open source and commercial processors.
		WindRiver VxWorks is the world's leading real-time operating system. WindRiver extends VxWorks support to PolarFire SoC.
		wolfSSL provides Open Source, lightweight and embedded security solutions with an emphasis on speed, size, portability, features, and standards compliance. Their products include wolfSSL, wolfCrypt, yaSSL and wolfSSH.
		The Zephyr Project is an open source collaborative effort to build a small, scalable RTOS. Zephyr OS has been ported on the Mi-V RISC-V Soft CPU deployed on the IGLOO2 FPGA on the Evaluation Kit M2GL-EVAL-KIT.

Aries Embedded SoM	Digitalcore SoM	Sundance DSP Polarberry	Trenz Electronic SoM

Choose from a range of Mi-V Ecosystem partner hardware ARIES Embedded offers hardware products (modular systems and custom designs), IP services and software development on Microchip's Polarfire SoC FPGAs. Digitalcore Technologies offers design services covering the entire Life cycle of a product including Hardware Designs (High Speed, High-Density Digital, Analog, Power and RF), Embedded Logic and Software Sundance DSP is a world-wide supplier of DSP and FPGA boards (SoM) and I/O modules for high performance, parallel processing applications such as imaging, radar, sonar, industrial control and military Trenz Electronic develops, manufactures, integrates and sells FPGA and SoC modules (SoM) with main focus on application specific HDL and FPGA design, hardware and software development.

Aries Embedded SoM
Features	PolarFire SoC FPGA (MPFS250T-FCVG484EES) 254 KLEs 784 Math Blocks (18x18 MACC) 16 x 12.5 Gbps SERDES lanes 2 x PCIe Gen2 end points/root ports Total User I/O: MSS-IO / HSIO / GPIO / XCVRs: 136 / 60 / 48 / 4 4GB LPDDR4 SDRAM dedicated to the HMS 4GB LPDDR4 SDRAM dedicated to the FPGA 4MB SPI NOR Flash 8GB eMMC 2 x Samtec QSH-090-01-F-D-A board-to-board interconnect Dimensions: 74mm x 42mm Operating temperature: 0°C to+70°C
Contact	Aries Embedded

Trenz Electronic SoM
Features	MPFSxxxT-FCVG484EES 1GB LPDDR4 256MB SPI Flash Interfaces: USB 2.0 GbE 1 x SGMII 4 x Transceiver + 2 clock 34 x HPIO, 86 x GPIO 1 x JTAG 1 x UART 1 x I2C Connector: Samtech LSHM Dimensions: 40mm X 50mm
Contact	Trenz Electronic

Sundance DSP SoM
Features	PolarFire SOC FPGA (MPFS250T-FCVG484) 4GB of 32-bit wide DDR4 memory 128MB SPI Serial NOR FLASH 4 High-speed low-power Transceivers from 250Mbps – 12.7Gbps; Raspbery PI interface connector(RPI) with 40 pins, with following: 1 x I2C from MSS part 1 x UART from MSS part 20 x GPIOs from FPGA part 6 x GPIOs from MSS part 4GB eMMC 2 x CAN 2.0 PHY One RJ-45 connector with 100/1000 BASE-T interface IO’s via high speed Samtec connectors Power consumption: 16 W Dimensions: 55mm x 85mm Operating temperature: -20°C to +65°C
Contact	Sundance DSP

Registered Users & Partners

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Quality & Packaging

PolarFire SoC

Lowest Power, Multi-Core RISC-V SoC FPGA

Overview

Early access program for PolarFire SoC is open. Email to PolarFireSoC@microchip.com to find out more.

Addressing Key Market Opportunities

Imaging / AI / ML

Internet of Things

Industrial Automation

Automotive

Defense

Communications

Getting Started

Choose a Platform

Choose a target to view the compatible reference material

Download the reference material compatible with your target

PolarFire SoC Icicle Kit

Aries Embedded SoM

Trenz Electronic SoM

Sundance DSP SoM

Digitalcore Technologies

Renode