Intel establishes a fund of over 100 billion yen and invests in open source RISC-V

by Michael Wyszomierski

Intel has announced that it will launch a $ 1 billion fund for 'startups developing technology for the foundry ecosystem.' At the same time, Intel also announced its investment in open source RISC-V , and it has been talked about that 'Intel, which succeeded in x86 with closed source CISC , is cooperating with open source.'

Intel Launches $ 1 Billion Fund to Build a Foundry Innovation Ecosystem :: Intel Corporation (INTC)
https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1525/intel-launches-1-billion-fund-to-build-a-foundry

Intel Corporation Makes Deep Investment in RISC-V Community to Accelerate Innovation in Open Computing --RISC-V International
https://riscv.org/whats-new/2022/02/intel-corporation-makes-deep-investment-in-risc-v-community-to-accelerate-innovation-in-open-computing/

Intel invests in open-source RISC-V processors, creates billion-dollar fund | ZDNet
https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-invests-in-open-source-risc-v-processors-with-a-billion-dollars-in-new-chip-foundries/

The new fund was launched by venture capital firm Intel Capital and the foundry business unit Intel Foundry Services (IFS). It is explained that investment will be prioritized for things that accelerate the introduction of semiconductors to the market, such as intellectual property, software tools, innovative chip architecture, and advanced packaging technology. And as the first step in the investment, Intel announced that it will make a strategic investment in partnership with RISC-V International, a RISC-V standardization body.

Intel announced 'IDM 2.0' aiming to expand the foundry service by investing more than 2 trillion yen in 2021. The newly established fund aims to strengthen the IFS ecosystem, which is a key pillar of IDM 2.0.

Intel announced 'IDM 2.0' aiming to expand foundry services by investing more than 2 trillion yen, and it was pointed out that 'We are planning to manufacture Apple Silicon' --GIGAZINE

The following three initiatives are the pillars of IDM.

1: Build Intel's global in-house factory network for large-scale manufacturing
2: Expanded third-party foundry capacity
3: Build 'Intel Foundry Services' as a world-class foundry business

IFS was established in response to rising global demand for semiconductors. In addition to providing packaging process technology, the IFS proposition is to provide a diverse portfolio of intellectual property for a variety of technologies, including instruction set architectures.

In addition to RISC-V, the fund will support design approaches that utilize instruction set architectures such as ARM and x86. It can be said that Intel thinks that 'RISC-V, ARM, and x86 will play a major role in semiconductors in the future.' In particular, Intel seems to expect greater demand for RISC-V's intellectual property and chip offerings.

'We are delighted to be part of the RISC-V International community,' said Bob Brennan, vice president of customer solution engineering at Intel. Accelerating RISC-V's growth and demonstrating its value to chip designers. Both a rich open source software and hardware ecosystem are important to deliver. Intel is pleased to support the growth of a free and open RISC-V instruction set architecture. '

'We are pleased that Intel, the pioneer of microprocessors 50 years ago, has become RISC-V International,' said David Patterson , one of the RISC-V co-developers. I did.