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⇱ Linux 6.15 To Support The Airoha NPU - A RISC-V Network Processor Unit - Phoronix


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Linux 6.15 To Support The Airoha NPU - A RISC-V Network Processor Unit

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Networking on 19 March 2025 at 06:36 AM EDT. 4 Comments
Patches queued up this month into net-next ahead of the upcoming Linux 6.15 kernel merge window add support for the Airoha NPU... Not to be confused with the Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that is all the rage these days for helping with AI, the Airoha NPU is a Network Processor Unit.

The Airoha NPU is a RISC-V module found within the Airoha EN7581 SoC for wired and wireless hardware flow offloading Packet Processor Engine (PPE). The EN7581 series SoC is a quad-core ARM CPU with 8-core RISC-V network processor (the "NPU") for providing WAN, WLAN WiFi 6 / WiFi 7, and LAN handling with smart packet acceleration. This SoC is intended for use within 10G-PON residential and enterprise gateways.

👁 Airoha NPU


Now at least with the code queued within net-next for the upcoming Linux 6.15 kernel, there will be mainline support for this RISC-V network processor.

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.