SiFive

SiFive develops and licenses processor core intellectual property based on the open-standard RISC-V instruction set architecture. Its portfolio spans scalar, vector, and matrix compute cores, accelerators, and system IP that customers configure and integrate into their own systems-on-chip. Target application areas listed by the company include AI and machine learning, automotive, edge computing, IoT and embedded, consumer devices, data center, aerospace and defense, and storage [0][2][6].

Alongside IP licensing, SiFive sells HiFive-branded RISC-V development boards intended for software development on RISC-V, including the HiFive Premier P550 (offered with pre-installed Ubuntu in 16GB and 32GB configurations) and HiFive Unmatched Rev B, plus discontinued legacy boards such as HiFive1, HiFive1 Rev B, HiFive Unleashed and HiFive Unmatched. Boards ship with documentation, SDKs, toolchains and utilities [3].

The company's more recent strategic emphasis is the data center: it states that its Series G proceeds will fund next-generation data center CPU, accelerator and system IP, software ecosystem work building on ports of CUDA, Red Hat and Ubuntu, and customer enablement efforts such as NVIDIA NVLink Fusion integration [4].

Business model

SiFive supplies processor core IP that semiconductor and system companies license and customize for their own silicon, and it also sells HiFive development boards to software developers building on RISC-V [0][3][6].

Sources describe licensing of RISC-V core IP to chip and system designers and sale of HiFive development boards; no pricing or revenue figures are disclosed in the material [3][6].