SiFive to Lay Off Hundreds of Staff Amid Changing RISC-V Market Dynamics

[AleksandarK]

SiFive is a team of one of the pioneering engineers that helped create RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) and helped the ecosystem grow. The company has been an active member of the RISC-V community and contributed its guidance on various RISC-V extensions. However, according to sources close to More Than Moore, the company is reportedly downsizing its team, and layoffs are imminent. The impact of the downsizing is about 20% of the workforce, which equals around 120-130 staff. However, that is only part of the story. SiFive is reportedly also canceling its pre-designed core portfolio and shifting focus on custom-design core IP that it would sell to customers. This is in line with the slowing demand for their pre-designed offerings and the growing demand for AI-enhanced custom silicon. The company issued a statement for Moore Than Moore.

As we adjust to the rapidly changing semiconductor end markets, SiFive is realigning across all of our teams and geographies to better take advantage of the opportunities ahead, reduce operational complexities and increase our ability to respond quickly to customer product requirements. Unfortunately, as a result some positions were eliminated last week. The employees are being offered severance and outplacement assistance. SiFive continues to be excited about the momentum and long-term outlook for our business and RISC-V.

Additionally, there was another statement for More Than Moore, which you can see entirely below.

As we identify and focus on our greatest opportunities, SiFive is shifting to best meet our customers' fast-changing requirements by undergoing a strategic refocusing of all our global teams.

Unfortunately, with this realignment, approximately 20% of employees across all different business groups and levels were impacted. The employees are receiving severance and outplacement assistance.

SiFive continues to be excited about the long-term opportunities for the company and for RISC-V. The growth of the company has never been stronger and the opportunities never better. We are well funded for years in the future and continue to work with the market leaders in every segment.

We remain focused on our four product groups, essential, intelligence, performance and automotive, and as we explained in a press event earlier this month, have a robust roadmap to meet the needs of these markets. We see tremendous new opportunities in AI and with Consumer products like wearables and mobile as Google brings Android to the RISC-V ecosystem.

We will continue to offer customization for specific customers, offering standard and custom products where it makes sense from a business standpoint.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[kondamin]

Are there other companies that have out of the box risk v socs for sale?
this destroys the affordability for small projects that don’t have the capital to have a custom core developed for them.

 

[Assimilator]

Good to finally see the idiotic RISC-V bubble pop. I never understood how anyone with half a brain could look at it and go "there are already two incredibly well-established ISAs in x86 and Arm, let's try and compete with them with something completely new that nothing and nobody supports".

 

[unwind-protect]

Temporary setback. RISC-V will win in the end.

 

[alphaLONE]

Good to finally see the idiotic RISC-V bubble pop. I never understood how anyone with half a brain could look at it and go "there are already two incredibly well-established ISAs in x86 and Arm, let's try and compete with them with something completely new that nothing and nobody supports".

Obvious bait is obvious

 

[Chaitanya]

Yesterdays video by Techtechpotato worth a watch:

 

[L'Eliminateur]

Good to finally see the idiotic RISC-V bubble pop. I never understood how anyone with half a brain could look at it and go "there are already two incredibly well-established ISAs in x86 and Arm, let's try and compete with them with something completely new that nothing and nobody supports".

X86 is a "dead end" as it's not licensable only intel and amd have licenses and whatever is left of via and the chinese amd clones, and it's useless outside of the "PC" space.
ARM is a greedy shit company that gouges it's licensees and it's also unpredictable.
RISC-V even if the ISA is flawed(it lacks a LOT of much needed instructions because they deemed so) being "free" is what's going to drive it, there's already lot of risc-v being used in small things and more on the way(HDD controllers, microcontrollers, wearables, IoT, etc)

What you won't see anytime soon is a consumer computing device with risc-v

 

[ScaLibBDP]

What you won't see anytime soon is a consumer computing device with risc-v

As a C/C++ Software Engineer, working on a RISC-V related project since February 2023, I admit that this is true. Most of the time my work is done in QEMU using Ubuntu for RISC-V, Fedora for RISC-V, and Debian for RISC-V. There are too many Single Board Devices ( SBCs ) on Aliexpress, Amazon, Ebay, etc. However, real computing systems, like DC-ROMA laptop, or Milk-V Pioneer 64-core motherboard / workstation system are Too expensive ( 2x, 3x ) for many customers.

Hundreds of small companies with really good ideas and products did Not survive a competition with monsters like, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Microsoft, IBM, etc. Just take a look at Qualcomm's attempts to compete with Intel and AMD notebooks.

The situation would change if Google commits itself to RISC-V and Android smartphones with RISC-V processor flood the market.

 

[unwind-protect]

As a C/C++ Software Engineer, working on a RISC-V related project since February 2023, I admit that this is true. Most of the time my work is done in QEMU using Ubuntu for RISC-V, Fedora for RISC-V, and Debian for RISC-V. There are too many Single Board Devices ( SBCs ) on Aliexpress, Amazon, Ebay, etc. However, real computing systems, like DC-ROMA laptop, or Milk-V Pioneer 64-core motherboard / workstation system are Too expensive ( 2x, 3x ) for many customers.

Hundreds of small companies with really good ideas and products did Not survive a competition with monsters like, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Microsoft, IBM, etc. Just take a look at Qualcomm's attempts to compete with Intel and AMD notebooks.

The situation would change if Google commits itself to RISC-V and Android smartphones with RISC-V processor flood the market.

Can all of those boards actually boot at least one of those Linux distributions? I hear bad reviews about the compatibility of boot code.

Google does use RISC-V in their smartphones, just not as the main CPU

 

[ScaLibBDP]

Can all of those boards actually boot at least one of those Linux distributions?

Yes. Even if these boards could be used for development I would classify most of them as "toys".

Check out prices for DC-ROMA laptop:
www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004822193933.html

A couple of months ago it was cheaper. Here are my records:
...
DC ROMA RISC-V notebook ( as of June 2023 )
Basic - $ 1,499 USD
Standard - $ 2,499 USD
Premium - $ 4,999 USD
...
DC ROMA RISC-V notebook ( as of October 2023 )
Basic - $ 3,072 USD
Standard - $ 5,117 USD
Premium - $ 10,228 USD

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

X86 is a "dead end" as it's not licensable only intel and amd have licenses and whatever is left of via and the chinese amd clones, and it's useless outside of the "PC" space.
ARM is a greedy shit company that gouges it's licensees and it's also unpredictable.
RISC-V even if the ISA is flawed(it lacks a LOT of much needed instructions because they deemed so) being "free" is what's going to drive it, there's already lot of risc-v being used in small things and more on the way(HDD controllers, microcontrollers, wearables, IoT, etc)

What you won't see anytime soon is a consumer computing device with risc-v

We might. Just not in the US. RISC-V is attractive as a general computing platform for countries like China or Russia.

 

[L'Eliminateur]

We might. Just not in the US. RISC-V is attractive as a general computing platform for countries like China or Russia.

yes but neither the software or hardware are there, and won't be even in the medium run.

AFAIK google was actively working on porting android to RISC-V, but we also have an issue of "chicken and egg", no big player wants to devote resources to develop a big high performance risc-v SoC (something on the order of a PC processor with 300W TDP) or even a "high performance low power" call-phone/tablet device because the software is not even close to being there.

Kind of what happened with itanium

 

[Squared]

What you won't see anytime soon is a consumer computing device with risc-v

Au contraire.

Qualcomm to Bring RISC-V Based Wearable Platform to Wear OS by Google

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced today that they are building on their long-standing collaboration with Google by bringing a RISC-V based wearables solution for use with Wear OS by Google. This expanded framework will help pave the way for more products within the ecosystem to take...

www.techpowerup.com

(There are also RISCV microcontrollers in Nvidia GPUs and I think Western Digital hard drives, both of which are sold to consumers. But those aren't CPUs as the consumer thinks of them and aren't really visible to the user in any way.)

 

[AnotherReader]

yes but neither the software or hardware are there, and won't be even in the medium run.

AFAIK google was actively working on porting android to RISC-V, but we also have an issue of "chicken and egg", no big player wants to devote resources to develop a big high performance risc-v SoC (something on the order of a PC processor with 300W TDP) or even a "high performance low power" call-phone/tablet device because the software is not even close to being there.

Kind of what happened with itanium

Itanium was a different story. It was a flawed concept based on flawed assumptions and that led to its demise. A lot of money and effort was spent trying to get it to run well and in the end, it lost to commodity x86.

RISC-V has a lot of flaws for something that should have learnt from the past 50+ years of CPU design. It's only getting attention because of ARM's strongarm tactics. We need an instruction set which is technically on the level of ARMv8 but without the ARM copyrights and lawyers.

 

[GreiverBlade]

DC ROMA RISC-V notebook ( as of October 2023 )
Basic - $ 3,072 USD
Standard - $ 5,117 USD
Premium - $ 10,228 USD

that's the price of the premium for me, around 7392.01$

 

[ScaLibBDP]

>>...the software is not even close to being there...

I express my point of view as a C/C++ Software Engineer working on a RISC-V related scientific project. Everything I needed for the software development Is Ported to RISC-V platforms. My Software Development Environment consists of four setups:

- On Windows 7 Professional using a MinGW-based cross-compiler for Freestanding mode emulation and debugging using GDB
- Ubuntu 20.04 for RISC-V ( in QEMU )
- Fedora 33 for RISC-V ( in QEMU )
- Debian 6.3/6.4 for RISC-V ( in QEMU )

Even if the performance of emulation in QEMU is so-so, my setup is very Flexible, Completely Isolated from RISC-V low level hardware of SBCs, and Allows me to change Linux-based operating systems in a matter of seconds. Another thing is a project I've been working on is very portable from the beginning.

 

[Squared]

I think Qualcomm wants to switch to RISC-V. In the near future Android and Android apps will probably work perfectly on RISC-V, at which point Qualcomm's Android customers would be fine with a RISC-V processor. Going this route would eliminate ARM licensing fees and rules and with Qualcomm not contributing to ARM's bottom line there would be less money available for ARM licensed cores, potentially giving Qualcomm's custom cores an edge over the competition. And the departure of SiFive from licensed core designs probably is good for Qualcomm.

On the other hand, Qualcomm wants to sell to Windows customers and there is no Windows for RISC-V.

 

[L'Eliminateur]

Au contraire.

Qualcomm to Bring RISC-V Based Wearable Platform to Wear OS by Google

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced today that they are building on their long-standing collaboration with Google by bringing a RISC-V based wearables solution for use with Wear OS by Google. This expanded framework will help pave the way for more products within the ecosystem to take...

www.techpowerup.com

(There are also RISCV microcontrollers in Nvidia GPUs and I think Western Digital hard drives, both of which are sold to consumers. But those aren't CPUs as the consumer thinks of them and aren't really visible to the user in any way.)

i knew about that, it's long in the future AND it's not a computing device it's a companion device

>>...the software is not even close to being there...

I express my point of view as a C/C++ Software Engineer working on a RISC-V related scientific project. Everything I needed for the software development Is Ported to RISC-V platforms. My Software Development Environment consists of four setups:

- On Windows 7 Professional using a MinGW-based cross-compiler for Freestanding mode emulation and debugging using GDB
- Ubuntu 20.04 for RISC-V ( in QEMU )
- Fedora 33 for RISC-V ( in QEMU )
- Debian 6.3/6.4 for RISC-V ( in QEMU )

Even if the performance of emulation in QEMU is so-so, my setup is very Flexible, Completely Isolated from RISC-V low level hardware of SBCs, and Allows me to change Linux-based operating systems in a matter of seconds. Another thing is a project I've been working on is very portable from the beginning.

Development platforms might be, user software, not, that's what i mean, are there browsers pre-compiled for risc-v like firefox and chrome you can download straight from the app/snap store of ubuntu?, libreoffice?, gimp?, Windows for RISC-V?, look at how much time it took for apple to make people switch to native ARM code and that's by moving all their heft.

unless risc-v also gets a x86 emulation close to native speed i don't see it succedding, much like Qualcomm's attempts at ARM windows computers that will heavily depend on Microsoft windows for ARM. Risc-v for consumer/end user won't take off until you get windows running on it natively, and as i've said just before, Windows is still not running "good" in ARM with "maybe next year with the new qualcomm cpu" even after how many years....

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

As a C/C++ Software Engineer, working on a RISC-V related project since February 2023, I admit that this is true. Most of the time my work is done in QEMU using Ubuntu for RISC-V, Fedora for RISC-V, and Debian for RISC-V. There are too many Single Board Devices ( SBCs ) on Aliexpress, Amazon, Ebay, etc. However, real computing systems, like DC-ROMA laptop, or Milk-V Pioneer 64-core motherboard / workstation system are Too expensive ( 2x, 3x ) for many customers.

Hundreds of small companies with really good ideas and products did Not survive a competition with monsters like, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Microsoft, IBM, etc. Just take a look at Qualcomm's attempts to compete with Intel and AMD notebooks.

The situation would change if Google commits itself to RISC-V and Android smartphones with RISC-V processor flood the market.

RISC-V, ironically, will have the same issue as linux does. There will be a central core, and 1 bazillion different versions with different capabilities. The things that allowed x86 and ARM to flourish were being controlled by one central group that set standards that all CPUs using said arch had to abide by. RISC doesnt have that power yet.

unless risc-v also gets a x86 emulation close to native speed i don't see it succedding, much like Qualcomm's attempts at ARM windows computers that will heavily depend on Microsoft windows for ARM. Risc-v for consumer/end user won't take off until you get windows running on it natively, and as i've said just before, Windows is still not running "good" in ARM with "maybe next year with the new qualcomm cpu" even after how many years....

The ARM CPUS are, technically, there. Adobe on windows 10 ARM, compiled for ARM, actually runs great.

The big issue there is MS doesnt have an answer for rosetta2, so anything not ARM native runs like slop. Hardware can only go so far if the translation layer is trash. Much as I'd love to see it fixed, I dont see it happening anytime soon unless the FOSS community makes one for linux that can be transposed to windows.

 

[HairyLobsters]

What is RISC-V?

 

[Squared]

What is RISC-V?

It's a CPU instruction set architecture designed to be capable of being used in place of x86 or ARM, and it's free as in no royalties to use it and no rules regarding offering additional instruction sets. It's used in microcontrollers in Nvidia GPUs and Western Digital hard drives where both companies wanted to be able to use a simple CPU without paying royalties to ARM and with the option to add their own instructions. Android is being made to run on RISC-V and Qualcomm is building a RISC-V processor for Android's wearable OS.

SiFive was designing RISC-V microarchitectures which could be licensed by other companies.

 

[unwind-protect]

RISC-V, ironically, will have the same issue as linux does. There will be a central core, and 1 bazillion different versions with different capabilities. The things that allowed x86 and ARM to flourish were being controlled by one central group that set standards that all CPUs using said arch had to abide by. RISC doesnt have that power yet.

I don't think that RISC-V is any worse than ARM in that regard.

 

[Solaris17]

The impact of the downsizing is about 20% of the workforce, which equals around 120-130 staff.

This seems short sighted. It's impossible to know if they already ran the numbers, but more often then not its some bean counter or middle manager making a knee jerk reaction to lay off staff for a bonus or to improve bottom line before some meeting.

If they plan to be and the market is as hot as they anticipate for custom AI asics then there shouldnt be a reason to lay off that much staff assuming they are going to make as much as they think they will. AI is a booming market, I anticipate they will need to hire that much staff back if they are successful.

Good news is, these decisions often are the painting on the wall and even if I wasnt affected I would leave this company (as I have left companies in the past) anyway given the terrible way they appear to be managed.

 

[AnotherReader]

I don't think that RISC-V is any worse than ARM in that regard.

No, RISC-V is much worse. ARM cores, for the most part, are managed by a single organization, and as such, don't have much fragmentation. David Chisnall explains the pitfalls of the RISC-V approach. I'll quote one of the most relevant parts:

RISC-V has some very exciting fragmentation already, with both a weak memory model and TSO: the theory is that TSO will be used for systems that want x86 compatibility, the weak model for things that don’t, but code compiled for the TSO cores is not correct on weak cores. There are ELF header flags reserved to indicate which is which, but it’s easy to compile code for the weak model, test it on a TSO core, see it work, and have it fail in subtle ways on a weak core. That’s going to cause massive headaches in the future, unless all vendors shipping cores that run a general-purpose OS go with TSO.