In the world of processor architectures, everyone is familiar with x 86, ARM, and even MIPS, but RISC-V has received less attention today. RISC-V is the latest processor architecture based on the Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) principle maintained by the University of California, Berkeley campus

. SiFive is a processor design company founded by the developers of RISC-V. It has brought to market several different RISC-V cores that provide an easy stepping stone to an open processor architecture without having to design your own chip. The company is now expanding its PC-side offering by launching a complete RISC-V development platform in Mini-ITX size.

The development platform, dubbed HiFive, is built on a Mini-ITX size motherboard. The motherboard contains a SiFive Freedom U 740 system circuit (4x U 74 core, 1x S7 core), 8 GB of DDR4 memory soldered to the motherboard, 32 Mt Quad SPI Flash memory and microSD card reader. Expansion slots include one PCI Express x 16 connector (x8 electronically) and M.2 slots for SSD (M-key) and WiFi card (E-key). The motherboard connector range includes a gigabit network connector, four USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A connectors, and one MicroUSB console connector. Power is supplied to the system board by a conventional 24 – pin ATX power connector.Source: SiFive