What next for SiFive?

By David Harold

January 21, 2025

JPR’s David Harold met with John Ronco, SiFive’s GM and SVP, Product, to discuss the state of the RISC-V market, including chiplets, customization from a design point of view, and the potential of RISC-V to win further sockets from Arm. 

At a high level, is being a RISC-V-focused IP company the right business? It feels like there have been challenges. Early companies seemed quite Arm-like, entering deals only to be told their cores were worth a fraction of an Arm core. There’s also been a lot of shifting among RISC-V players to find where the value lies. What has SiFive’s experience been?

John Ronco: Do we believe in RISC-V’s future? Absolutely, yes. The question is, how long it will take? I haven’t met a customer who says they’re entirely content with Arm and don’t need an alternative. Every conversation revolves around when and how they want to adopt RISC-V, not if. The key is understanding how fast the RISC-V market grows and its eventual limits.

In my view, RISC-V will eventually take over everything. It’s just a matter of time. The real question then becomes: Who will drive this adoption? Is there value in being a RISC-V IP provider? My answer is yes but with caveats. The market isn’t big enough for the number of players currently in it. Consolidation is inevitable. That said, IP remains a fundamentally attractive business, and we frequently hear dissatisfaction with Arm’s model, including its move toward chiplets and CSS (Compute Subsystems). Many customers value the flexibility RISC-V IP offers.

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