The European Space Agency is investigating many ways to boost computing capabilities in space, and one of the processors it is backing is close to release. 

The space agency is part of a group developing an open-source processor called Occamy, which is based on RISC-V. The chip was closer to completion and is now being assembled after being taped out late last year, researchers said during a presentation at last month’s Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference.

The 432-core chip is an interesting combination of old and new tech, and has been designed using the relatively new chiplet approach. The chiplet design allows the mixing and matching of old and new technologies – such as analog or digital processors – inside a chip package. 

Occamy is a low-power chip for AI and high-performance computing workloads. AI workloads today largely rely on accelerators like GPUs and AI cores for training and inferencing, and the researchers hope the open-source chip could also be used in earth-bound AI workloads. 

The chip is being developed as part of the EuPilot program, which is developing homegrown processors to reduce reliance on proprietary x86 and ARM chips. The core Occamy chip development is being carried out by researchers at ETH Zürich and University of Bologna.  

The European Processor Initiative is also developing sovereign chips for supercomputers, AI, IoT, and autonomous cars. 

ESA is interested in the chips because it will allow equipment in space to perform on-chip data analysis. While there is no guarantee that ESA will put the chip in operation, it is one of many processors being explored for spaceflight computing.  NASA has also adopted RISC-V chips from Microchip and SiFive to upgrade its spaceflight computers. 

The researche