Jun 11, 2021 16:06:00

It is reported that Intel is considering the acquisition of RISC-V processor development company 'SiFive' for over 200 billion yen

It is reported that Intel is considering the acquisition of 'SiFive', a semiconductor company that develops

RISC-V adopted processors.

Chipmaker SiFive Is Said to Draw Intel Takeover Interest --Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-10/chipmaker-sifive-is-said-to-draw-intel-takeover-interest

Intel Offers $ 2 Billion for RISC-V Chip Startup SiFive: Bloomberg | Tom's Hardware
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-offers-dollar2-billion-for-risc-v-startup-sifive-bloomberg

Intel debates buyout of SiFive to bolster chip technology against Arm (source) | VentureBeat
https://venturebeat.com/2021/06/10/intel-debates-buyout-of-sifive-to-bolster-chip-technology-against-arm-source/

RISC-V is an open source instruction set architecture (ISA) in which leading technology companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Qualcomm, Micron, Samsung and Huawei participate in development. RISC-V is license-free and is attracting a lot of attention as a technology that benefits small developers and builds a new ecosystem throughout the industry.

RISC-V is expected to be a technological innovation since 'Moore's Law' --GIGAZINE

SiFive is a company that develops processors that adopt such RISC-V, and in January 2021, the inexpensive computer board '

BeagleV ' equipped with the RISC-V processor 'SiFive U74 ' made by SiFive appeared, and it became a hot topic. It was.

Affordable computer board 'BeagleV' equipped with RISC-V CPU in the 10,000 yen range and compatible with Linux operation --GIGAZINE

And on June 10, 2021,

Bloomberg reported that 'Intel is considering the acquisition of SiFive.' According to Bloomberg, the planned acquisition price by Intel is 2 billion dollars (about 200 billion yen), and SiFive is being offered for acquisition by multiple companies other than Intel.

Technology-related media Tom's Hardware announced the start of processor manufacturing operations that adopted major ISA such as x86 , ARM , RISC-V in the foundry service expansion strategy 'IDM 2.0' announced by Intel in March 2021 'If the news that Intel will buy SiFive is true, Intel will add RISC-V to its arsenal.' 'In the future, Apple's M1 and It could help compete with AWS's Graviton 2 '.

Will Intel's foundry service expansion strategy 'IDM 2.0' be a clue to Intel's revival? --GIGAZINE

Technology media VentureBeat said, 'SiFive has Chris Lattner, a well-known developer of Swift and LLVM. A successful acquisition of Intel SiFive will strengthen our software business. 'We emphasize the benefits of Intel's acquisition of SiFive.'

At the time of writing the article, Intel and SiFive did not respond to Bloomberg's comment request.