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Gothenburg, Sweden (April 2, 2025) – The Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA) has awarded Frontgrade Gaisler, a leading provider of radiation-hardened microprocessors for space missions, a contract to commercialize the first neuromorphic System on Chip (SoC) device for space applications. Already in development at Frontgrade Gaisler, the device is part of the company’s new GRAIN (Gaisler Research Artificial Intelligence NOEL-V) product line.
The first GRAIN device that Frontgrade Gaisler will premier – the Gr801 SoC – integrates AkidaTM neuromorphic technology from BrainChip, the world’s first commercial producer of ultra-low power, fully digital, event-based, neuromorphic AI. The GR801 combines Gaisler’s NOEL-V RISC-V processor and the Akida neuromorphic AI processor into a single integrated circuit to enable energy-efficient AI applications in the space environment. Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) is contributing to this development by designing a demonstration application that uses a neuromorphic sensor directly connected to Gaisler’s new GR801 device.
Frontgrade Gaisler is designing the entire GRAIN product line to enable more advanced and autonomous space missions, and to enhance the space industry’s capabilities in energy-efficient AI. The GR8001 SoC will support both commercial and institutional space missions, enabling new applications and meeting strict power and weight constraints.
“Our latest innovation opens new avenues and complements our existing range of proven and reliable processing products,” said Sandi Habinc, General Manager at Frontgrade Gaisler. “GRAIN is an exciting new pursuit for Gaisler because we are well positioned to enable new capabilities for real-time data processing, autonomous navigation, Earth observation, and object detection and tracking.”
“Our continued collaboration with Frontgrade Gaisler to incorporate Akida IP into space SoCs showcases the importance of having environmentally hardened solutions, already proven to perform in the most extreme conditions,” said Sean Hehir, CEO of BrainChip. “We have worked hard to ensure our neuromorphic technology can meet the low-energy, low-latency, high-performance needs of GRAIN and other space-based devices in order to provide AI at – and beyond – the edge.”
Frontgrade Gaisler announced its new GRAIN product line at the second RISC-V in Space Workshop 2025, in Gothenburg, Sweden. The event focuses on how RISC-V technology is being leveraged in space systems, ranging from satellites to deep space missions. Learn more about the GRAIN product line at gaisler.com/grain
About Frontgrade Gaisler
Frontgrade Gaisler, a Frontgrade company, is a leading provider of radiation-hardened microprocessors and IP cores for critical applications, particularly in the space industry. The company’s processors are ideal for any space mission or other high-reliability application due to their reliability, fault tolerance, and radiation tolerance. Frontgrade Gaisler microprocessors can be found all over the solar system, from Mercury to Neptune.
About Frontgrade Technologies
Frontgrade Technologies is a leading provider of high-reliability, radiation-assured solutions for defense, intelligence, commercial, and civil applications. With over 60 years of space flight heritage, Frontgrade offers a complementary and integrated suite of mission-matched electronics, including rad-hard and rad-tolerant components, mission processing subsystems, amplifiers, custom ASICs, motion control systems, waveguides, antennas, and power management solutions.
About Swedish National Space Agency
The Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA) is an administrative authority under the Ministry of Education responsible for government-funded national and international space operations in Sweden in terms of research and development.
About KTH Royal Institute of Technology
The KTH Neurocomputing Systems team (NCS) led by Prof. Jörg Conradt contributes expertise in neuromorphic sensor and computing algorithms for the development of a demonstrator system. Fundamental research in neuromorphic computing at the NCS lab investigates theory, models, and applied implementations of distributed neuronal information processing, to (a) discover key principles by which large networks of neurons operate and (b) implement those in engineered systems to enhance their real world performance.
About BrainChip Holdings Ltd (ASX: BRN, OTCQX: BRCHF, ADR: BCHPY)
BrainChip is the worldwide leader in Edge AI on-chip processing and learning. The company’s first-to-market, fully digital, event-based AI processor, AkidaTM, uses neuromorphic principles to mimic the human brain, analyzing only essential sensor inputs at the point of acquisition, processing data with unparalleled efficiency, precision, and economy of energy. Akida uniquely enables Edge learning local to the chip, independent of the cloud, dramatically reducing latency while improving privacy and data security. Akida Neural processor IP, which can be integrated into SoCs on any process technology, has shown substantial benefits on today’s workloads and networks, and offers a platform for developers to create, tune and run their models using standard AI workflows like Tensorflow/Keras. In enabling effective Edge compute to be universally deployable across real world applications such as connected cars, consumer electronics, and industrial IoT, BrainChip is proving that on-chip AI, close to the sensor, is the future, for its customers’ products, as well as the planet. BrainChip was founded in Australia in 2004 and is a public company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). Explore the benefits of neuromorphic computing at www.brainchip.com.
Media Contact:
Liz Ryan Sax
Frontgrade Technologies
+1 719-487-4259
press@frontgrade.com
