- Athena1 Targets Government, Defense, and Aerospace with Security-Focused Dual-Use Processor Designs
- SiPearl develops sovereign European CPU but faces global competition for 2027 launch
- Europe pushes for processor sovereignty while trusting TSMC manufacturing
French chip designer SiPearl has announced Athena1, a processor designed for government and defense applications, as well as aerospace use cases.
The CPU is described as a customized version of Rhea1, the company’s first-generation processor, but with features designed specifically for sensitive workloads such as cryptography, secure communications, tactical networking and intelligence processing.
The Athena1 line will be available in configurations offering 16, 32, 48, 64, or 80 Arm Neoverse V1 cores, with the choice depending on performance needs and thermal requirements.
Affirm Europe’s strategic independence
Manufacturing of the chip will be carried out by TSMC, and packaging will initially take place in Taiwan, before moving to Europe at a later stage to foster a domestic supply chain.
SiPearl says Athena1 is intended to address “dual-use” demands, where processors serve both civil and defense purposes.
This includes applications ranging from electronic sensing to local in-vehicle data processing.
Athena1 is scheduled for commercial launch in the second half of 2027, with more technical details to be announced closer to launch.
“In an era of geopolitical uncertainty, with cybersecurity issues and armed conflicts on the rise, Europe’s technological sovereignty is increasingly inseparable from sovereign hardware, whether for civil or, more importantly, defense applications,” said Philippe Notton, CEO and founder of SiPearl.
“It was therefore natural for SiPearl to capitalize on the expertise developed by its HPC R&D teams to develop a new version of our first processor that perfectly meets the needs of dual-use purposes. As part of the roadmap that Europe has entrusted to us to encourage the return of high-performance processor technologies to the continent, Athena1 is the perfect complement to Rhea1 to help assert the strategic independence of Europe,” he added.
The launch is part of Europe’s growing push for semiconductor independence and follows European startup Euclyd’s newly announced CRAFTWERK SiP, which claims bandwidth levels far beyond Nvidia’s designs.
It remains to be seen whether Athena1 will be able to compete with American or Asian rivals when it debuts.
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