DÜSSELDORF, Germany: German semiconductor startup Ubitium has announced the successful tape-out of the first silicon of its universal microprocessor architecture on Samsung Foundry’s 8nm process.
The Ubitium tape-out was completed in December 2025 and marks a significant milestone for the company as it works to simplify embedded computing by introducing a universal RISC-V processor designed to replace multiple specialized processors currently used in modern embedded systems.
The Ubitium chip is positioned as the first universal RISC-V processor capable of consolidating different computing workloads that typically require multiple processors.
Also Read: HANMI Semiconductor Supports Micron’s $2.75 Billion India Semiconductor Investment
Embedded computing, currently estimated to be a $115 billion market, has become increasingly complex as modern systems integrate numerous specialized chips.
In the automotive sector, for instance, vehicles that once relied on a single processor now operate with more than 200 processors, each with its own software stack, development toolchain, and supplier ecosystem.
According to Ubitium, this growing complexity is now a major constraint for system designers. While performance improvements remain important, the industry increasingly faces challenges related to managing fragmented architectures and development environments.
As artificial intelligence workloads expand into robots, drones, and industrial machines, the complexity associated with multiple processors is becoming increasingly difficult to manage.
The Ubitium architecture builds upon RISC-V, the open-source processor architecture already used in billions of chips globally. The company extends the architecture beyond the traditional CPU model by introducing a universal processor capable of executing multiple workload types within a single chip.
The Ubitium processor is designed to run Linux and RTOS simultaneously, while also handling real-time radar and audio signal processing and executing neural network inference at the edge.
These capabilities are achieved without relying on separate accelerators or coprocessors, while maintaining full compatibility with the RISC-V software ecosystem.
“This tape-out turns a long-held thesis into silicon,” said Martin Vorbach, CTO of Ubitium. “Embedded workloads have outgrown the architectures the industry relies on today. Consolidation isn’t optional anymore. It’s inevitable.”
The Ubitium approach aims to replicate in embedded computing what software-defined radio achieved in wireless technology by replacing fixed-function hardware with reconfigurable silicon.
According to the company, this approach enables embedded systems to reduce development cycles, lower system costs, and extend product lifecycles.
As part of the development process, Ubitium collaborated with several industry partners, including Samsung Foundry, Siemens Digital Industries Software, and ADTechnology, as it moves toward production-ready silicon.
Also Read: C2i Semiconductors Raises $15 Million Series A Led by Peak XV Partners
“The shift toward software-defined, reconfigurable compute is accelerating. Ubitium’s approach, one universal processor replacing multiple specialized chips, aligns with where we see embedded systems heading. We’re proud to manufacture their first silicon,” said Taejoong Song, vice president and head of Foundry Technology Planning Team at Samsung Electronics.
Verification and validation processes were supported by Siemens Digital Industries Software, which provided hardware-assisted verification tools during the chip design process.
“Shift-left verification helps teams validate system behavior earlier by running more realistic workloads ahead of first silicon,” said Jean-Marie Brunet, Sr. Vice President, Hardware Assisted Verification, Siemens Digital Industries Software.
“Ubitium’s use of Siemens’ EDA tools, specifically the Veloce CS hardware-assisted verification and validation system, highlights how early validation can de-risk integration, support design closure, and accelerate time to first silicon.”
Backend implementation support for the Ubitium processor was provided by ADTechnology, which assisted with the tape-out process on Samsung’s advanced 8nm manufacturing node.
“Advanced-node silicon delivery depends on disciplined back-end execution across timing, power, and signoff,” said Jun-Kyu Park, CEO of ADTechnology. “We are pleased to have supported Ubitium throughout the implementation process as it progressed to tape-out on Samsung Foundry’s 8nm process.”
The founding team behind Ubitium brings extensive experience in programmable architectures and software ecosystems. CTO Martin Vorbach previously created PACT XPP, an early commercial reconfigurable processor architecture, and holds more than 200 patents related to processor design.
The company’s engineering team also brings experience from major semiconductor firms including Intel, Texas Instruments, Apple, and NVIDIA, along with more than 350 peer-reviewed research publications.
The successful tape-out validates several key architectural components of the Ubitium platform, including the Universal Processing Array with runtime reconfiguration and the LPDDR5 memory interface.
According to Ubitium, a second tape-out is planned later in 2026, while volume production is targeted for 2027 as the company advances toward commercial deployment of its universal processor architecture.
Technical Capabilities of the Ubitium Processor
The Ubitium universal processor is designed to support a wide range of workloads on a single chip, including general-purpose computing, real-time signal processing, and massively parallel AI inference within a homogeneous architecture.
The Ubitium software stack supports Linux and RTOS, standard RISC-V toolchains, and compatibility with modern software frameworks. This design eliminates the need for proprietary programming languages or vendor-specific compilers.
Target applications for the Ubitium processor include radar and multi-sensor signal chains, real-time audio and voice processing, computer vision, edge AI, automotive cockpit systems, and industrial human-machine interfaces (HMI).
A key architectural feature of the Ubitium design is its runtime adaptability. The Universal Processing Array can dynamically shift execution modes at runtime between CPU, DSP, GPU, and parallel accelerator configurations, without requiring context switching or external offloading.
By consolidating multiple processing functions into a single architecture, Ubitium aims to enable system designers to operate with one processor, one toolchain, and one qualification cycle, reducing bill-of-material costs, board complexity, and supplier dependencies across long product lifecycles.
