Qinghe Qingke RISC-V adheres to a differentiated positioning of interconnectivity, having developed over a hundred products including dual-core interconnected MCUs and USB/Bluetooth/Ethernet interface chips after eight years of deep cultivation and five years of commercialization. As a familiar face at the RISC-V China Summit, this year Qinghe introduced the development history, technological innovations, and ecological construction achievements of Qingke RISC-V at the main venue of the summit, sharing their self-developed processor “core” technology and transceiver PHY “root” technology, enhancing product interface features through cross-domain technological integration and chip design, and accelerating the successful application of RISC-V.
△ Qinghe shared the mass commercialization and annual profit experience of Qingke RISC-V during the roundtable session at the main venue
Specialization: Letting RISC-V Flourish
How did Qingke RISC-V come about? Qinghe started with USB and PCI bridge chips, and its USB chip CH340 is favored by engineers. After the success of the bridge chips, Qinghe leveraged the mature technology of its USB product line to launch an MCU focused on USB functionality. From lightweight 8-bit MCUs to Arm-based general-purpose MCUs, after two generations of product experience accumulation, Qinghe began to layout its self-developed RISC-V in 2017, with the planned processor being today’s Qingke RISC-V.
The openness of RISC-V allows companies to leverage their strengths to create unique features. With a strong background in connectivity technology and a deep understanding of Arm’s homogenization, Qinghe naturally focused its differentiation on communication interfaces. In 2020, Qingke RISC-V general-purpose MCUs and Bluetooth SoCs were launched simultaneously, emphasizing ease of use in communication interfaces, quickly attracting a group of professional customers and achieving mass application that year.
△ Qinghe delivered a keynote report titled “Deep Roots, Abundant Fruits: The Technological Innovation and Business Loop of Qingke RISC-V” at the main venue
With positive market feedback, Qingke RISC-V gained confidence and further solidified its differentiated positioning in interconnectivity. While many Arm MCUs compete on storage capacity and the number of peripherals, Qingke RISC-V has focused on the mid-to-high-end customer base. Compared to resource stacking and cost compression, professional customers value performance and quality more, which is precisely Qinghe’s advantage. In the following years, Qingke chips have skyrocketed in communication efficiency, power consumption, and integration. First, the old product upgraded from the M3 core to the same process Qingke V4, with power consumption dropping by 30%; then, the physical layer PHY, typically reserved for high-end MCUs, was made standard, setting a new industry trend; the dual-core MCU chip CH32H417’s ultra-high-speed USB3.0 even reached 450MB/s, 30MB/s faster than Cypress’s FX3.
According to public information, Qinghe’s fifth-generation simplified instruction set Qingke RISC-V processor has developed over a dozen models aimed at high performance and low power consumption, all of which are in mass application. Among them, the Qingke V5F processor achieves a performance of 5.73 CoreMark/MHz, 20% stronger than the Arm M7 of H743, and only 10% away from the strongest Arm M85. Surpassing the Arm M7 marks that Qingke MCU has the capability to compete with imported MCUs in the high-end market.
A clear understanding of its advantages and a differentiated route to fully leverage those advantages, along with excellent product planning, have allowed Qingke RISC-V to maintain a strong identity among a plethora of Arm chips. Even in recent years, despite rumors of MCU saturation and layoffs at foreign companies, Qingke RISC-V has continued to thrive, with public information indicating that sales have increased annually and performance has risen year after year.
△At the 2025 RISC-V Summit, Qinghe showcased over a hundred mass-produced chips of Qingke RISC-V
Currently, Qingke RISC-V is applied in Qinghe’s USB, Bluetooth, Ethernet interface chips, and interconnected MCUs, having developed over a hundred chip products aimed at high-speed connectivity, low-power wireless communication, power management, and motor control, truly bringing RISC-V into a wide range of downstream markets and allowing it to flourish.
Five Years of Commercial Cases, Strengthening Confidence in the RISC-V Industry
The year 2020, when Qingke RISC-V began mass commercialization, coincided with the initial stage of the RISC-V industry in China, with very few related products on the market and a lack of ecosystem. At that time, the downstream market’s understanding of RISC-V was insufficient, and many held a wait-and-see or even skeptical attitude towards RISC-V, making product promotion much more challenging than it is now. During this period, switching the MCU product line from Arm to RISC-V posed significant risks for chip design companies, requiring strong strategic determination and technical strength. Qingke RISC-V’s commercial success during a time of ecological scarcity proved the strong vitality of RISC-V to the industry.
△ At the first RISC-V China Summit in 2021, Qinghe shared key technologies for mass-produced Qingke chips with the industry
Qinghe has allowed RISC-V to shine in connectivity technology, being the first to achieve mass commercialization and market recognition while maintaining a profitable business loop. This is a typical case of a local enterprise leveraging its unique advantages to enhance product competitiveness through differentiation, ultimately achieving high-quality development. It also sets an example for the industry, highlighting the importance of specialization in the development of the RISC-V industry. Currently, the domestic RISC-V environment is at its best historical moment, with more resources entering the field. Sufficient attention should be paid to preventing homogenization and saturation, and with the commercial success of Qingke RISC-V and the lessons learned from Arm, it is believed that local enterprises will pay more attention to cultivating their unique advantages.
Self-Developed Key Technologies, Deep Research Promoting High-Quality Development of RISC-V
According to General Yang from Qinghe, the industry generally designs chips based on purchased Arm processor technology. If chip design is likened to building a building, it is equivalent to establishing the foundation of the building on foreign ground. In contrast, Qinghe innovatively designs chips based on self-developed Qingke RISC-V processors and other underlying key technologies, which not only do not rely on foreign licenses for core technology, avoiding payments to foreign suppliers for technology licensing fees and commissions, but also do not depend on foreign ecosystems and software tools. This not only solidifies the foundation of local chips but also, through the product features of interconnectivity and mature, practical technological innovations, has gained strong market recognition, leading to sustained profitability.
Qinghe’s self-developed Qingke RISC-V has undergone extensive optimization for industrial and IoT applications, such as improving response times, which are of great concern in the industrial control field, and reducing power consumption, which is crucial for IoT applications, thereby enhancing product battery life. Even during the solution development phase, features like single and dual-line debugging technology to save I/O and remote assistance through the MRS integrated development environment provide significant convenience for engineers in product development and maintenance. These details, which are important to downstream customers but often overlooked by startups and overshadowed by Arm cores, are key to Qingke RISC-V standing out amidst a sea of Arm chips.
Of course, the success of Qingke RISC-V also relies on Qinghe’s deep expertise in connectivity technology. As a company that thrives on interface technology, bridge chips have been a constant throughout Qinghe’s development trajectory. According to public information, after long-term R&D accumulation, Qinghe has established a complete technical reserve in USB, Bluetooth, and Ethernet, providing layered and refined chip products according to the vertical levels of communication technology. Undoubtedly, the mature technology accumulated in communication interfaces has given Qingke RISC-V a significant boost, forming the core of Qingke MCU’s competitive advantage.
Qinghe has put great effort into Qingke RISC-V, not only specializing the processor but also enhancing the recognition of Qingke MCUs with top-notch connectivity technology, while simultaneously building an ecosystem. The Qingke MCU is not just a chip; it comes with a complete set of development tools. Among them, the MounRiver Studio integrated development environment has been a strong support for Qingke RISC-V, having undergone seven years of iterative development with hundreds of thousands of global users. It not only provides features like remote assistance and function call analysis but also eliminates the soft costs of customers purchasing IDEs, bringing RISC-V to a broader downstream market.
△ At the 2025 Shanghai Electronics Show, Qinghe launched the “RISC-V Family Package”
By connecting key links of processor technology, connectivity technology, chips, software, and ecosystem, this year at the Munich Shanghai Electronics Show, Qinghe proposed concepts like “technology all the way through” and “RISC-V Family Package.” The “all” in the family package not only refers to a rich product line but also represents deep self-research in technology and comprehensive product support. The success of Qinghe Qingke RISC-V provides the industry with a highly valuable operational reference, and it is believed that more RISC-V companies will adopt a specialized development model in the future, enhancing their strength through deep research, rooting down in technology, branching out in products, and collectively promoting high-quality development of the RISC-V industry.