Thanks to interference mitigation techniques for multicore systems at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – National Supercomputing Center, the platform will offer high performance while reducing interference. Thales will validate the platform with real-world aerospace applications.

“With this first exclusively European platform based on RISC-V technology for space, De-RISC will guarantee access to technology made exclusively in Europe for aerospace applications, thus contributing to the 'Technologies for European non-dependence and competitiveness' program in these strategic markets,” says Paco Gómez Molinero, director of fentISS and coordinator of the De-RISC project.

RISC-V will help ensure the platform is future-proof, thanks to the growing support for this open-source architecture. Furthermore, proprietary architectures used in aerospace systems, PowerPC and SPARC, are experiencing declining interest. Consequently, the space industry is unable to leverage software from commercial domains, increasing the need to shift to architectures prevalent in higher-volume markets. The final platform will be portable to other architectures and will provide a superior level of fault tolerance.

Together, the four project partners form a strong team for aerospace computing. Cobham Gaisler is a leading processor supplier to the European Space Agency (ESA), while fentiSS's XtratuM hypervisor has been used in the latest generation of satellites ("NewSpace"). BSC has a broad portfolio of European projects developing cutting-edge space technologies. Finally, Thales' extensive experience in developing, operating, and delivering satellite-based systems puts it in a prime position to validate the technology for space applications.