The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) has unveiled the new Sargantana chip, the third generation of open source processors designed entirely at the BSC. This chip represents an important advance in achieving European technological sovereignty and reducing dependence on large multinational corporations. Named after the lizard in Aragonese and Catalan, Sargantana is one of the most advanced open source chips in Europe at the academic level. It features better performance than its predecessors and is the first processor in its family to break the gigahertz barrier in operating frequency. The instruction set architecture of these processors is open source, enabling innovation through collaboration without the limitations of proprietary architectures. The BSC aims to turn Barcelona into an innovation hub specializing in semiconductor design. This development is significant for Europe, as it addresses the vulnerability of relying on chips designed and produced outside the continent. The Sargantana chip is freely available to all, and its design enables collaboration between companies and academic institutions worldwide. While it is currently an experimental chip, it lays the foundation for Spain and Europe to design their own competitive processors in the future. Funding for the project has been provided by the European funds from the ERDF Operational Programme of Catalonia 2014-2020 and the Catalan Government
https://www.bsc.es/news/bsc-news/bsc-presents-sargantana-the-new-generation-the-first-open-source-chips-designed-spain