RISC-V chip technology firm SiFive raises $175 mln, valued at $2.5 bln

Chip know-how startup SiFive’s CEO Patrick Very little collaborates with employee Sahar Rahgozar at SiFive’s headquarters in San Mateo, California, U.S. Oct 19, 2021. Photo taken October 19, 2021. SiFive/Handout by using REUTERS

March 16 (Reuters) – SiFive, Inc., a RISC-V chip technological innovation startup in Silicon Valley, reported on Wednesday it raised $175 million in its most recent spherical of funding and is now valued at $2.5 billion.

RISC-V is an instruction established architecture (ISA), a base for constructing chips that defines what kind of application can run on the chips. Arm Ltd’s ARM and Intel’s x86 are the dominant ISAs utilised right now for general-objective processors, or the brains of pcs, and are proprietary.

By comparison, RISC-V is open typical and free of charge to use. Nations around the world like China trying to find to create their chip independence have been pushing to acquire RISC-V chips.

SiFive’s founders invented the RISC-V ISA in the labs of College of California, Berkeley. The firm’s business model is to make types using RISC-V and demand dollars for the designs. Last year it produced the P550 – a chip main style and design that aims to challenge Arm’s dominance in smartphone chips, and stated it would pair with Intel Corp’s factories to make the design and style available to components makers.

Very last month as aspect of the start of its $1 billion fund to guidance corporations with disruptive systems and create up its foundry business, Intel also laid out its path to help the Risc-V ecosystem.

“For the x86, the compute leader on the world, to place their arm close to SiFive and RISC-V and say, we’re heading to be investing hundreds of tens of millions of bucks … I assume it’s historically critical for RISC-V,” mentioned SiFive President and CEO Patrick Little.

The most recent spherical delivers SiFive’s total funding to around $350 million and was led by international financial investment company Coatue. Existing investors Intel Cash, Sutter Hill, and some other people joined this most recent spherical. SiFive also counts SK Hynix Inc (000660.KS) and Qualcomm Ventures as traders.

“We’re setting up now to transfer to institutional buyers that are on Wall Road that will pull us to IPO,” Minor reported.

Reporting By Jane Lanhee Lee Enhancing by Karishma Singh

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