Motivation

The small satellite market is a key trend up to 2030 and beyond, and this new market opens up a broad spectrum of possibilities in the space segment of modern applications. Small satellites can now perform new tasks to meet growing demands in high-performance satellite communication and augmented satellite-based navigation systems for civilian consumers, but especially in constellation and swarm formations, which pushes the formation of satellite clusters that can replace the traditional and expensive solutions based on large satellites.

For various applications within the satellites the microcontrollers are needed. This includes control domain, with propulsion systems, various robotics applications, motor and mechanisms, DC/DC conversion, or thermal regulation. Another application domain is represented also by scientific instrumentation for control of various sensing devices. MORAL objectives are aligned with the future demands of the small satellite market and its vast commercial potential, and also aims to contribute to change the European space landscape by opening new business opportunities and offering products that contribute to establishing a European supply chain.

MORAL processor core is based on the novel Peaktop architecture including a novel Instruction Set Architecture (ISA). Peaktop is a simple and flexible general-purpose RISC architecture for real-time and embedded processing and general data processing. The new ISA is fully orthogonal, with instructions and addressing modes that treat each general purpose register (GPR) equally. It is regular, with machine modes up to 128 bytes, and circular, where the last GPR is a "logical" neighbor to the first one. It effectively supports the mixed-criticality that enables the concurrent execution of non-critical software with safety and mission-critical safety in a single and unique processor.