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

Chip technological innovation startup SiFive’s CEO Patrick Little collaborates with personnel Sahar Rahgozar at SiFive’s headquarters in San Mateo, California, U.S. October 19, 2021. Image taken Oct 19, 2021. SiFive/Handout by means of REUTERS

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

RISC-V is an instruction set architecture (ISA), a base for building chips that defines what kind of computer software can run on the chips. Arm Ltd’s ARM and Intel’s x86 are the dominant ISAs applied today for typical-goal processors, or the brains of pcs, and are proprietary.

By comparison, RISC-V is open typical and free to use. Nations around the world like China in search of to make their chip independence have been pushing to establish RISC-V chips.

SiFive’s founders invented the RISC-V ISA in the labs of University of California, Berkeley. The company’s business enterprise model is to develop types making use of RISC-V and cost revenue for the styles. Very last year it introduced the P550 – a chip main style that aims to challenge Arm’s dominance in smartphone chips, and said it would pair with Intel Corp’s factories to make the design obtainable to components makers.

Past month as section of the start of its $1 billion fund to assist firms with disruptive technologies and develop up its foundry enterprise, Intel also laid out its route to assist the Risc-V ecosystem.

“For the x86, the compute chief on the earth, to place their arm around SiFive and RISC-V and say, we’re going to be investing hundreds of hundreds of thousands of pounds … I feel it’s traditionally crucial for RISC-V,” said SiFive President and CEO Patrick Minimal.

The latest spherical brings SiFive’s whole funding to around $350 million and was led by world financial investment firm Coatue. Current investors Intel Money, Sutter Hill, and some other people joined this most recent spherical. SiFive also counts SK Hynix Inc (000660.KS) and Qualcomm Ventures as investors.

“We are setting up now to move in the direction of institutional traders that are on Wall Avenue that will pull us to IPO,” Very little stated.

Reporting By Jane Lanhee Lee Editing by Karishma Singh

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