VyperCore

VyperCore, a UK-based semiconductor startup founded in July 2022, is developing processor technology designed to enhance the performance and security of existing compute-intensive workloads. The company originated from research conducted at the University of Bristol by co-founder Ed Nutting, who serves as the Chief Technology Officer. He is joined by co-founder and Executive Chairman Russell Haggar, a seasoned semiconductor executive and entrepreneur.

The firm's core offering is a proprietary memory management technology that alters how a processor views its memory, shifting from a traditional linear space to an object-based perspective. This modification allows for substantial optimization in the execution of existing code without requiring any source code changes. The technology is initially being implemented on the open-source RISC-V architecture and is designed to be integrated deeply within the processor. This approach can accelerate workloads by up to ten times for general-purpose compute-intensive tasks, particularly benefiting modern programming languages like Python, Java, and C#. By handling memory allocation management in the hardware, the technology frees up the CPU to focus on application execution. For example, it has demonstrated up to a 5x performance increase on unmodified Python benchmark code.

VyperCore's business model initially targets the data center market by providing its technology on accelerator cards. This strategy aims to offer significant cost and energy savings for data centers by allowing them to handle the same workloads with fewer servers. The company's technology also provides security benefits by fundamentally blocking memory-oriented cybersecurity threats like buffer overflows and memory leaks at the hardware level. To facilitate adoption and development, VyperCore launched VyperLab, a cloud-based platform where partners can evaluate the technology by running their existing production code. The company secured £4 million (approximately $5 million) in a seed funding round in April 2023 from investors including Octopus Ventures, BGF, and Foresight WAE Technology. These funds are being used to establish design centers in Cambridge and Bristol and to develop its first-generation silicon. The company plans to tape out a test chip, followed by a commercial multicore server chip on a 5nm process node.

Keywords: semiconductor, processor technology, RISC-V, data center acceleration, memory management, hardware security, compute optimization, workload acceleration, Python performance, CPU architecture, accelerator cards, fabless semiconductor, deep tech, memory safety, silicon design, cloud evaluation platform, energy efficient computing, high performance computing, object-based memory, general-purpose compute