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Open AccessArticle
RiscADA: RISC-V Extension for Optimized Control of External D/A and A/D Converters
by
Cosmin-Andrei Popovici
Cosmin-Andrei Popovici
,
Andrei Stan
Andrei Stan
Andrei Stan received his B.S. degree in Computer Engineering in 2002, followed by an M.Sc. degree in [...]
Andrei Stan received his B.S. degree in Computer Engineering in 2002, followed by an M.Sc. degree in Advanced Computer Architecture in 2003, and a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering in 2012, all from the "Gheorghe Asachi" Technical University of lasi, Romania. He is currently a faculty member in the Department of Computer Engineering and actively contributes to both teaching and research in the fields of computer systems and embedded technologies. Dr. Stan's primary research interests lie at the intersection of Computer Architecture, Embedded Systems, with a particular emphasis on the design and simulation of complex computing systems. His work explores modern architectures for domain-specific computing, hardware-software co-design methodologies, and system-level modeling. He has been involved in various research and development projects, both academic and industry-oriented, focusing on the early validation of embedded architectures and the development of customized processing solutions for real-time and safety-critical applications.
*
,
Nicolae-Alexandru Botezatu
Nicolae-Alexandru Botezatu
and
Vasile-Ion Manta
Vasile-Ion Manta
Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of Automatic Control and Computer Engineering, “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iași, 700050 Iași, Romania
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Electronics 2025, 14(15), 3152; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics14153152 (registering DOI)
Submission received: 5 July 2025
/
Revised: 4 August 2025
/
Accepted: 6 August 2025
/
Published: 7 August 2025
Abstract
The increasing interest shared by academia and industry in the development of RISC-V cores, extensions and accelerators becomes fructified by collaborative efforts, like the EU’s ChipsJU, which leverages the design of building blocks, IPs and cores based on RISC-V architecture. A domain capable of benefiting from the RISC-V extensibility is the control of external DACs and ADCs. The proposed solution is an open-source RISC-V extension for optimized control of external DACs and ADCs called RiscADA. The extension supports a parametrizable number of DACs and ADCs, is integrated as a coprocessor beside CVA6 in a SoC by using the CV-X-IF interface, deployed on a Kintex UltraScale+ FPGA and implements ISA extension instructions. After benchmarks with commercial solutions, the results show that CVA6 using RiscADA extension configures external DACs 38.6 × and 10.9× times faster than MicroBlaze V and simple CVA6, both using AXI SPI peripherals. The proposed extension achieves 5.35× and 3.05× times higher sample rates of external ADCs than the two configurations mentioned above. RiscADA extension performs digital signal conditioning 4.52× and 3.1× times faster than the MicroBlaze V and CVA6, both using AXI SPI peripherals. It computes statistics for external ADC readings (minimum, maximum, simple-moving average and over-threshold duration).
Share and Cite
MDPI and ACS Style
Popovici, C.-A.; Stan, A.; Botezatu, N.-A.; Manta, V.-I.
RiscADA: RISC-V Extension for Optimized Control of External D/A and A/D Converters. Electronics 2025, 14, 3152.
https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics14153152
AMA Style
Popovici C-A, Stan A, Botezatu N-A, Manta V-I.
RiscADA: RISC-V Extension for Optimized Control of External D/A and A/D Converters. Electronics. 2025; 14(15):3152.
https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics14153152
Chicago/Turabian Style
Popovici, Cosmin-Andrei, Andrei Stan, Nicolae-Alexandru Botezatu, and Vasile-Ion Manta.
2025. "RiscADA: RISC-V Extension for Optimized Control of External D/A and A/D Converters" Electronics 14, no. 15: 3152.
https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics14153152
APA Style
Popovici, C.-A., Stan, A., Botezatu, N.-A., & Manta, V.-I.
(2025). RiscADA: RISC-V Extension for Optimized Control of External D/A and A/D Converters. Electronics, 14(15), 3152.
https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics14153152
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