C-SKY
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C-SKY Microsystems was founded in Hangzhou, China, in 2001. The architecture was developed to provide a domestic Chinese alternative to ARM and MIPS for embedded applications[2].
In April 2018, Alibaba Group acquired C-SKY Microsystems to bolster its chip-making capabilities. Following the acquisition, the company was integrated into Alibaba's "T-Head" (Pingtouge) semiconductor arm[3].
While T-Head has since pivoted heavily toward RISC-V (with the XuanTie series), C-SKY remains a supported legacy architecture with millions of units in the field.
Architecture
The C-SKY ISA is designed for high code density and low power consumption. It features two primary versions:
- V1: The legacy version, focused on basic embedded control.
- V2: The modern version, which introduced a 16/32-bit mixed-length instruction set (similar to ARM’s Thumb-2). This version supports hardware floating-point units (FPU), DSP extensions, and multi-core configurations[4].
Common CPU Cores:
- CK801 / CK802: Ultra-low power, 2-stage pipeline.
- CK803: Low power with optional FPU and DSP extensions.
- CK810: High-performance application processor with a 10-stage pipeline and MMU support for Linux.
- CK860: High-end multi-core variant with SMP support.