Demand for Domain-Specific Architecture Drives Continued Investment in Processor Innovation

SAN MATEO, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — August 11, 2020 — SiFive, Inc., the leading provider of commercial RISC-V processor IP and silicon solutions, today announced it raised $61 million in a Series E round led by SK hynix, joined by new investor Prosperity7 Ventures, with additional funding from existing investors, Sutter Hill Ventures, Western Digital Capital, Qualcomm Ventures LLC, Intel Capital, Osage University Partners, and Spark Capital.

“Global demand for storage and memory in the data center is increasing as AI-powered business intelligence and data processing growth continues”, said Youjong Kang, VP of Growth Strategy, SK hynix. “SiFive is well-positioned to grow with opportunities created from data center, enterprise, storage and networking requirements for workload-focused processor IP.”

SiFive develops a range of processor cores, accelerators, and SoC IP to create domain-specific architecture that will enable efficient, high-performance computing solutions. SiFive innovates by developing processor microarchitecture, SoC IP, and accelerator IP for use in workload-specific silicon. With this new investment, SiFive will help leading semiconductor companies bring to market new products for aerospace, automotive, artificial intelligence, data center, mobile, networking, and storage applications.

SiFive’s product portfolio of RISC-V-based microarchitectures are the perfect choice to replace and augment legacy, general-purpose proprietary architectures in workload-focused designs. Recently, SiFive announced the SiFive 20G1 update for SiFive Core IP, enabling significant enhancements for performance, power, area, and features, with pre-integrated SiFive Shield, for whole SoC security, and SiFive Insight advanced trace and debug capabilities.

“SiFive is well-positioned to capture the opportunity enabled by workload focused products,” said Aysar Tayeb, Executive Managing Director at Prosperity7 Ventures. “We’re pleased to be part of the global shift to workload-focused designs, and believe SiFive’s domain-specific architecture IP will fuel innovation and solutions for computing challenges we see today.”

Domain-specific architecture designs are further enabled by SiFive Custom Instruction Extensions (SCIE), permitting the inclusion of workload-focused IP through hardware and software optimization. SiFive heterogeneous architecture allows the integration of mixed processor core designs in a coherent cluster for scale-out problems, leveraging SCIE to accelerate workload processing efficiently.

“We are very pleased by the new and renewed investment in the SiFive vision and mission,” said Dr. Naveed Sherwani, Chairman, President, and CEO of SiFive. “SiFive’s winning product portfolio will continue to expand and be adopted for solutions that require domain-specific architectures.”

For more information on SiFive’s market-leading RISC-V IP portfolio, please visit SiFive.com.

About SK hynix

SK hynix Inc., headquartered in Korea, is the world’s top tier semiconductor supplier offering Dynamic Random Access Memory chips (“DRAM”), Flash memory chips (“NAND Flash”) and CMOS Image Sensors (“CIS”) for a wide range of distinguished customers globally. The Company’s shares are traded on the Korea Exchange, and the Global Depository shares are listed on the Luxemburg Stock Exchange. Further information about SK hynix is available at www.skhynix.com, news.skhynix.com.

About Prosperity7 Ventures

Prosperity7 Ventures is the diversified growth VC fund of Aramco Ventures, a subsidiary of Aramco. Prosperity7 Ventures invests globally in startups, with a longer-term view to develop next generation technologies and business models that will bring prosperity and a positive impact on a vast scale.

About SiFive

SiFive is the leading provider of processor cores, accelerators, and SoC IP to create domain-specific architecture based on the free and open RISC-V instruction set architecture. SiFive offers scalable, configurable processor cores pre-integrated with security, trace, and debug features for workload-specific accelerator designs. Founded by the inventors of RISC-V, SiFive has 15 design centers worldwide and backing from Sutter Hill Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Spark Capital, Osage University Partners, Chengwei, Huami, SK hynix, Intel Capital, and Western Digital. For more information, please visit www.sifive.com.

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SK hynix
Global Public Relations
Korea
E-Mail: global_newsroom@skhynix.com

Prosperity7 Ventures
Prosperity7 Ventures Communications
Alya Sairafi
alya.sairafi@aramco.com
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

SiFive
Hilary Livingston Castle
INK Communications
203.858.7259
sifive@ink-co.com