RISC-V standard bearer 'SiFive' lays off 20% of employees and shifts from original CPU development business to custom core business?

RISC-V is an open source instruction set architecture that has attracted a lot of attention because it can be used without paying a license fee. However, it has been revealed that SiFive , a semiconductor company famous for developing chips using RISC-V, has laid off 20% of its employees and downsized its chip design business.

The Risk of RISC-V: What's Going on at SiFive?
https://morethanmoore.substack.com/p/the-risk-of-risc-v-whats-going-on

At the time of writing, most CPUs on the market are developed based on instruction set architectures such as x86 and Arm. Among these, x86 is used only by a very small number of companies such as Intel and AMD, and Arm, which is used by a relatively large number of companies, incurs a huge license fee when using it. For this reason, new entrants into the CPU industry remained difficult.

RISC-V is an instruction set architecture developed at the University of California, Berkeley, and unlike x86 and Arm, it is published as open source. For this reason, RISC-V is attracting attention as an entity that opens the door to CPU development, and many companies are working on developing CPUs using RISC-V. Among prominent companies, Qualcomm announced on October 17, 2023 the development of a CPU for smart watches that uses RISC-V, and it is expected that mass production of chips that use RISC-V will begin in the near future. It is expected.

Qualcomm declares to develop RISC-V-based mass-produced SoC 'RISC-V Snapdragon Wear' in cooperation with Google - GIGAZINE

SiFive is a semiconductor company that focuses on developing RISC-V-based CPUs, including CPUs for data centers and automobiles. In September 2022, NASA adopted SiFive's RISC-V-based CPU ' SiFive Intelligence On April 11th, they announced the ``SiFive Performance P870'' and ``SiFive Intelligence X390,'' demonstrating their active research and development.

NASA adopts RISC-V-based processor 'SiFive Intelligence X280' for space mission, expected to have 100 times more computing power than conventional ones - GIGAZINE

However, according to Ian Cattles , a journalist who covers technology-related information, SiFive will temporarily lay off 100 to more than 300 employees, including physical design engineering departments, sales departments, product departments, and management teams, in October 2023. Information that he was fired was provided by multiple sources. In addition, a spokesperson for SiFive confirmed that 20% of its employees were laid off, and explained the reason for the layoffs, saying, ``SiFive is recalibrating all teams to respond to rapid changes in the semiconductor market.'' 'As a result, some employees have been furloughed.'

In addition to the business of ``designing unique CPUs from scratch,'' SiFive also performs the business of ``receiving requirements from customers and creating custom cores.'' Mr. Catres also received information from a source that ``SiFive no longer has any uniquely designed CPUs left in its portfolio, and from now on the custom core business will be its main business.'' However, Mr. Katres explains that the information about the transition to the custom core business is less accurate than the information about layoffs.