Californian RISC-V computing firm SiFive is looking to thrive with the opening of its new UK R&D Centre in Cambridge.
Along with that great news, SiFive says it is committed to hiring more than 100 new employees across various roles and positions.
Patrick Little, CEO and Chairman of SiFive, obviously wants to make a big difference and says the company is keen on “local technical talent, especially CPU experts”.
SiFive, which was founded in 2015, is out to challenge Arm. The US firm’s goal is to bring RISC-V to “data-intensive applications”. It works with companies across “every” market segment of chip design, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, automotive, data centre, mobile and consumer.
According to its website, SiFive is alive and kicking with 300+ design wins with over 100 companies – including eight of the top ten semiconductor companies.
- Is it OK to mention a rival? Yeah, sure. Read about ‘Arm Shows Financial Muscle with Record Revenues’ here
In terms of its UK rival, last month chip designer Arm was keen to prove the failed $40 billion (£29 billion) takeover by NVIDIA had done no harm with record revenues and record profits in FY21. Arm said 2021 total revenues were up 35% to $2.7 billion (£2.2 billion).
Those positive feelings were all well and good but as reported in March, Arm said it will cut between 12-15% of its workforce due to the collapse of NVIDIA’s takeover in February.
In the latest twist in the Arm saga, SoftBank, which owns the company, says London is still in the running for its flotation plans.
Anyway, SiFive is the main theme and it’s not short of money. In March 2022, it announced its $175 million (£143 million) Series F funding round and appointed Nicole Singer as Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer.
With Singer on board, SiFive plans to more than double the company’s global staff across its international offices (US headquarters in San Mateo, France, India, UK and Taiwan) by 2024.
Currently, SiFive is seeking UK and Cambridge-based candidates in CPU design, architecture, verification, software development, sales and customer experience (CX).
