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At electronica 2024, Quintauris CEO Alexander Kocher described the company’s goal as making open RISC-V technology easier to use in industrial products—starting with safety-critical automotive computing. His central point: an open instruction-set architecture is only a starting point; automakers also need interoperability, functional-safety work, long-term support and a path to certification.
What is Quintauris?
Quintauris is a commercial company formed in late 2023 by Bosch, Infineon, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP and Qualcomm. STMicroelectronics became its sixth shareholder in August 2024. The company aims to help convert RISC-V, an open instruction-set architecture, into compatible products, reference architectures and solutions that industrial customers can adopt.
Kocher described the mission in terms of usability, viability and alignment: lower barriers to adopting RISC-V, strengthen the ecosystem with reliable implementations, and reduce fragmentation so products and software can interoperate. Automotive is the initial market; mobile and IoT were identified as possible later areas of expansion.
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What did Kocher say about RISC-V at electronica 2024?
Kocher said the challenge is not RISC-V’s potential but making it workable for industrial needs. In practice, that means moving beyond a flexible open architecture toward consistent implementations and complete solutions that can be maintained and deployed in production.
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- Flexible MCU Board: Incorporate the ESP32-C3 32-bit RISC-V chip, operating up to 160 MHz, mounted multiple development ports,
- Developer Friendly: Compatible with Arduino IDE, MicroPython, CircuitPython, PlatformIO, ESP IDF, Zephyr, Matter, ESPNow, Meshtastic, WLED, ESPHome, Home Assistant, Ubidots
- Outstanding RF performance: Complete Wi-Fi functions and Bluetooth Low Energy, while supporting communication over 100m with anFL antenna
- Elaborate Power Design: 4 working modes as low as 44 μA in deep sleep mode, while supporting lithium battery charge management
- Thumb-sized Design: 21 x 17.5mm, Seeed Studio XIAO series classic form factor
The distinction matters in automotive. A chip architecture does not by itself provide functional safety, predictable behavior, certification, software support or a product lifecycle suitable for vehicles. Quintauris’s proposed role is to help coordinate those pieces so companies do not have to solve every compatibility and readiness issue independently.
How Quintauris differs from RISC-V standards organizations
Quintauris distinguishes its commercial industrialization role from nonprofit organizations such as RISC-V International and the Open Hardware Group, which maintain specifications and community infrastructure. The distinction is about deliverables and purpose, not a claim that one replaces the other.
Rank #2
- CH32V003 Development Minimum System Board for Nano RISC-V CH32V003F4U6 Chip TYPE-C USB 22Pin
- on-board 24MHz Crystal oscillator
- Power by TYPE-C USB
| Dimension | Nonprofit specification and community work | Quintauris’ stated role |
|---|---|---|
| Governance | Nonprofit ecosystem and specification activity | For-profit industrialization company |
| Deliverables | Open specifications and community infrastructure | Profiles, reference architectures, software, tools and services |
| Assurance and support | Open community participation | Licensing, certification, benchmarking, functional-safety alignment and lifecycle support |
| Initial focus | Broad RISC-V ecosystem work | Automotive safety-critical real-time applications |
| Problem addressed | Developing and maintaining an open architecture and ecosystem | Fragmentation, interoperability and production readiness |
Kocher characterized Quintauris as a for-profit company whose business model includes licensing, certification and benchmarking. That makes it different from a standards body: it is positioning itself to package and support industrial implementations rather than to maintain the open ISA specification itself.
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How Quintauris is approaching automotive RISC-V
Quintauris’s first target is safety-critical, real-time automotive computing. Kocher described its platform as broader than hardware: it includes software, tools and operating-system adaptations around the architecture. The intent is to give automotive suppliers and manufacturers a more consistent basis for development and deployment.
Rank #3
- The ESP32-C3 SUPERMINI is positioned as a high-performance, low-power, cost-effective IoT mini development board, suitable for low-power IoT applications and wireless wearable applications
- It is equipped with a rich set of interfaces, including 11 digital I/Os that can be used as PWM pins and 4 analog I/Os that can be used as ADC pins.
- It supports four serial interfaces, including UART, I2C, and SPI.
- The ESP32-C3 features a 32-bit RISC-V CPU, including an FPU (Floating Point Unit) capable of 32-bit single-precision
- Package: 2PCS ESP32-C3 MINI Development Board ESP32 SuperMini ESP32 C3 WiFi Module
For this market, adoption depends on more than instruction compatibility. Customers need predictable behavior, functional-safety considerations, certification pathways, long-term maintenance and confidence that an architecture can support production vehicles. Those requirements explain why Quintauris emphasizes industrialization alongside openness.
What is the RT-Europa RISC-V profile?
Kocher presented RT-Europa as a profile developed specifically for modern safety-critical automotive real-time applications. A profile narrows broad architectural flexibility into a more defined set of expectations for implementations, helping systems and software work consistently across products.
Rank #4
- ESP32-C6 WiFi 6 microcontroller development board adopts ESP32-C6-WROOM-1-N8 module, which is equipped with RISC-V 32-bit single-core processor, up to 160MHz main frequency, built-in 8MB Flash
- Integrates WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5 and and IEEE 802.15.4 (Zigbee 3.0 and Thread) wireless communication, with superior RF performance
- Integrates rich peripherals including SPI, UART, I2C, I2S, LED PWM, SDIO and other interfaces, compatible with the pinout of ESP32-C6-DevKitC-1-N8 development board, more convenient to use and expand a variety of peripheral modules
- Onboard CH343 and CH334 USB HUB chips, supports USB and UART development at the same time via a USB-C port
- Comes with online examples and tutorials for ESP-IDF development environment
RT-Europa is described as emphasizing deterministic behavior, low latency and reliability. It is also intended to scale and allow manufacturer-specific extensions. Standardization of this kind is meant to reduce adoption risk for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and Tier-1 suppliers while leaving room for differentiation where needed.
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What challenges did Kocher identify?
- Fragmentation: Broad implementation freedom can make it harder for components and software to interoperate.
- Functional safety and certification: Automotive products need assurance and a credible path to certification, not just an open architecture.
- Lifecycle support: Vehicle programs require maintenance and support over long product lifetimes.
- Production readiness: Companies need a clear path from an architecture and profile to complete solutions suitable for series production.
These are the industrialization problems Quintauris says it is organized to address. The EE Times interview was conducted at electronica 2024; its archive lists publication on November 13, 2024, while the interview record is dated November 14, 2024.
Quick Recap
Best Value
- Ample PSRAM Storage – The development board offers 8MB PSRAM, providing substantial extra memory for handling more complex tasks, large data buffers, and advanced processing.
- Enhanced Multi-Tasking Capability – With the additional 8MB PSRAM, the ESP32-C5-WIFI6-KIT can efficiently manage multiple protocol stacks simultaneously, ensuring smooth operation in multi-tasking IoT environments.
- Support for Medium-Load Applications – The 8MB PSRAM allows the ESP32-C5 to handle medium-load applications more effectively, making it ideal for scenarios requiring real-time data processing or continuous communication.
- Seamless Performance – The increased memory improves the overall performance and responsiveness of the device, particularly when running applications with larger memory footprints or more demanding computations.
- Future-Proof for Complex Projects – With 8MB of PSRAM, developers are better equipped to build scalable, high-performance solutions that support both current and future IoT use cases, offering flexibility for future-proofing designs.
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