Introduction
• Shakti is an open-source initiative by IIT Madras
• Shakti is building many processors based on the RISC-V instruction
set
• They currently have 3 core variants known as the C class , I class
and T class
• C class is the controller class for mobile like applications run upto 1.5
GHz, I class is the performance oriented and can run at around 2.5
GHz, T class is Tagged ISA for security.
• Most processors are based on von Neumann architecture whereas
Shakti is based on Harvard architecture which is newer
What is RISC-V Instruction Set
• RISC-V ISA is free and open-source and can be used royalty-free for
any purpose, permitting anyone to design, manufacture and sell RISCV chips and software.
• While not the first open-architecture ISA, it is significant because it is
designed to be useful in a wide range of devices. The instruction set
also has a substantial body of supporting software, which avoids a
usual weakness of new instruction sets
What is Harvard architecture
• The Harvard architecture stores machine instructions and data in
separate memory units that are connected by different busses. In this
case, there are at least two memory address spaces to work with, so
there is a memory register for machine instructions and another
memory register for data. Computers designed with the Harvard
architecture are able to run a program and access data independently,
and therefore simultaneously. Harvard architecture has a strict
separation between data and code.
Conclusion
Shakti is customize microprocessor. It has ability to deals with both
temporal and spatial memory attacks. Shakti-T employs the concept of
base and bounds to ensure that pointers access valid memory regions.
As compared to conventional methods, which store the base and bounds
for every pointer explicitly in memory, Shakti-T also proposes a set of
instruction extensions required to maintain a coherent state of the BnB
Cache data structure
