Psst, you want us to design you an Arm chip? 'Cause we can do that, says RISC-V processor darling SiFive

RISC-V processor specialist SiFive will double down on improving its CPU cores after pushing its system-on-chip design efforts into a new unit. Dubbed OpenFive, the operation will design whatever system-on-chips customers need, supporting whichever CPU cores fit the individual applications. Crucially, that means OpenFive will …

[fizznit]

SiFive willingness to design with ARM hasn't changed, org has

SiFive's SOC design capability came from an acquisition of a company called Open-Silicon.

Open-Silicon was designing ARM cores before the acquisition, and as part of SiFive, continued to do so after the acquisition. So this announcement isn't really introducing a new capability, but might be an attempt to clear up confusion in the marketplace, so that prospective customers who want a custom ARM core don't assume that SiFive's custom SOC arm is a RISC-V-only shop.

It may also bring better focus inside the company to draw a clearer line between the SOC business and the RISC-V IP business, and give the two units distinct missions and goals.

A more intriguing possibility is that SiFive is making OpenFive more independent as preparation to spin it off. But I'd guess it's more about bringing more clarity to their offerings.

[diodesign]

Open Silicon

Fair point, though the examination of SiFive's motivations and goals was sparked by its rather public announcement of silicon design work involving non-RISC-V cores.

It could have migrated Open Silicon toward exclusively using its own CPUs but has instead kept that link with Arm going -- which is telling in of itself.

C.

[StrangerHereMyself]

What 150 million?

Where have these 150 million SiFive cores been heading then?

I never heard of a SiFive CPU in any consumer item or any other item for that matter. I know they sold some Arduino boards with a SiFive CPU but that's it.

[diodesign]

Re: What 150 million?

For one thing, Samsung uses SiFive's RISC-V tech in its 5G smartphones, eg in the mmwave RF stage.

Also, SiFive says its SoC IP - keyword IP - has appeared in 150 million shipped parts, which given the scales of chips in embedded electronics, isn't unbelievable. That's basically where it's going: IoT and embedded kit. This was largely inherited from Open Silicon, from what I can tell.

C.

[Justthefacts]

Re: What 150 million?

Well, if we’re doing *that* sort of market then RISC-V isn’t even a fragment of a fingernail.

There’s 4 billion Bluetooth chips shipped per year, and a third of them were CSR with a XAP CPU in them. So a CPU you’ve never even heard of, ships more every month then RISC-V has shipped in its whole history. Oh, and you can license a XAP IP if you like, and customise it however you like.

Why are we talking about RISC-V again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What 150 million?

> Why are we talking about RISC-V again?

Because there's only one thing that's worse than being talked about: not being talked about.

[Scene it all]

Re: What 150 million?

I believe Western Digital is using RISC-V in some of its storage controllers. And Alibaba has something in the works, as mentioned in The Reg last July. China is very interested in RISC-V because it is open source and can be used regardless of US embargoes.

I have played with those Arduino-like boards and they are very easy to program even in assembly.

[Tom 7]

A bit more AI friendly stuff

which appears to be in the pipeline, if its low enough power I can see these being handy in extendible compute engine type jobies.