SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Intel (INTC) Reportedly Offers Over $2 Billion To Acquire the Fabless Semiconductor SiFive as the Consolidation Trend in the Industry Is Nowhere Close to Slowing Down [wccftech.com]

[According] to Bloomberg [bloomberg.com], Intel has reportedly offered over $2 billion to acquire the fabless semiconductor SiFive, a provider of commercial RISC-V processor IP and silicon solutions based on the RISC-V instruction set architecture.

Should this deal become a reality, it would mark the climax of growing bonhomie between Intel and SiFive. For instance, back in 2018, Intel was one of the participants in the Series C funding round [sifive.com] of SiFive. Thereafter, in March 2021, SiFive announced [sifive.com] a collaboration with the Intel Foundry Business (IFB) to develop innovative new RISC-V computing platforms.

Of course, unlike legacy Instruction Set Architectures (ISAs), RISC-V's proponents [techrepublic.com] believe that it addresses the skyrocketing cost of designing and manufacturing increasingly complex new chip architectures, given that that the ISA is layered, extensible, and flexible. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that some believe RISC-V to be the future.

Bear in mind that SiFive was last valued at $500 million, as per the data available at PitchBook. This means that Intel would be paying a premium of over 300 percent relative to SiFive's 2020 valuation.

Previously: SiFive HiFive Unleashed Not as Open as Previously Thought [soylentnews.org]
Qualcomm Invests in RISC-V Startup SiFive [soylentnews.org]
SiFive Announces a RISC-V Core With an Out-of-Order Microarchitecture [soylentnews.org]
GlobalFoundries and SiFive Partner on High Bandwidth Memory (HBM2E) [soylentnews.org]
SiFive to Debut a RISC-V PC for Developers in October [soylentnews.org]
SiFive Announces HiFive Unmatched Mini-ITX Motherboard for RISC-V PCs [soylentnews.org]

Original Submission