Ara2: Exploring Single- and Multi-Core Vector Processing with an Efficient RVV 1.0 Compliant Open-Source Processor

Vector processing is highly effective in boosting processor performance and efficiency for data-parallel workloads. In this paper, we present Ara2, the first fully open-source vector processor to support the RISC-V V 1.0 frozen ISA. We evaluate Ara2’s performance on a diverse set of data-parallel kernels for various problem sizes and vector-unit configurations, achieving an average functional-unit utilization of 95% on the most computationally intensive kernels. We pinpoint performance boosters and bottlenecks, including the scalar core, memories, and vector architecture, providing insights into the main vector architecture’s performance drivers. Leveraging the openness of the design, we implement Ara2 in a 22nm technology, characterize its PPA metrics on various configurations (2-16 lanes), and analyze its microarchitecture and implementation bottlenecks. Ara2 achieves a state-of-the-art energy efficiency of 37.8 DP-GFLOPS/W (0.8V) and 1.35GHz of clock frequency (critical path: ~40 FO4 gates). Finally, we explore the performance and energy-efficiency trade-offs of multi-core vector processors: we find that multiple vector cores help overcome the scalar core issue-rate bound that limits short-vector performance. For example, a cluster of eight 2-lane Ara2 (16 FPUs) achieves more than 3x better performance than a 16-lane single-core Ara2 (16 FPUs) when executing a 32x32x32 matrix multiplication, with 1.5x improved energy efficiency.