TAIGA: A new RISC-V soft-processor framework enabling high performance CPU architectural features

Recently, there has been an increased focus on integration of reconfigurable fabric with modern processors. However, existing soft-processors are optimized to leverage older FPGA fabrics, focus primarily on resource minimization and have fixed-pipeline designs that limit the scope for tightly integrated hardware accelerators. In this work, we present Taiga: a RISC-V, 32-bit, soft-processor architecture supporting the RISC-V Multiply/Divide and Atomic operations extensions (RV32IMA) designed to support Linux-based shared-memory systems. The processor design is highly configurable and features a standardized interface for functional units allowing for ease of integration of new functional units. Despite a more complex pipeline, our design uses approximately 33% fewer slices while clocking 39% faster than a LEON3 based system built on a Xilinx Zynq X7CZ020.