Intel in talks to acquire RISC-V firm SiFive for $2 billion
Intel isn’t the only one interested in SiFive
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Chip giantIntelhas reportedly offered $2 billion to acquire SiFive, a chip startup founded in 2015 by researchers out of UC Berkeley, that designs computing cores using theRISC-Vplatform, which is often touted as anopen sourcearchitecture.
SiFive is reportedly weighing the offer fromIntel, which already has an investment in the startup, sharedBloombergciting unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
Earlier this year, Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger counted SiFive as one of the customers of the company’s newIntel Foundry Servicesdivision and announced that the two were working together to allow RISC-V chips to be fabbed within Intel’s facilities.
However Intel is reportedly not the only one courting SiFive, and the company has received several other takeover interests, as well as offers of investment, which the source adds could be the “preferable route" for SiFive.
Open hardware
The interest in SiFive may also be influenced byNvidia’s ongoingacquisition of Arm, which has yet not passed all its regulatory hurdles, mostly because ofconcernsabout the future of Arm’s open licensing model.
Purchasing SiFive would bring a host of hardware and software intellectual property (IP) to Intel that the company can use to fulfill its newfound desire to service external customers through itsIDM 2.0 strategy, which will also see the company open its chip factories to outsiders.
Phoronixis of the opinion that SiFive’s RISC-V IP is perhaps the “most compelling” one at the moment, especially in light of its recent developer-friendly efforts like HiFive Unmatched.
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VIaPhoronix
With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’sTechRadar Pro’sexpert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.
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