The latest insights, and deeper technology dives, from RISC-V leaders

On August 15, we announced that regarded industry veteran Naveed Sherwani has
joined SiFive as CEO. We invited him to share his vision for the company and
his optimism for fomenting a revolution in the semiconductor industry.

Check out the full newsletter [here](https://info.sifive.com/welcome-the-sifive-download-part-ii)!


**Martyn Stroeve, VP, Marketing SiFive**
 
Since SiFive launched in 2015, our logo has become a recognized symbol in the industry, synonymous with leadership and cutting-edge chip IP. 
 
In our early days, we balanced two missions: building SiFive and championing RISC-V, an open-standard architecture that empowers anyone to design custom chips without proprietary barriers. Our messaging and look reflected that balancing act. Today, RISC-V is no longer an “if”—it’s a global force transforming computing. SiFive has matured into a leader with the broadest RISC-V portfolio, offering customizable high-performance scalar, vector, and matrix solutions. These span four robust product families, serve hundreds of customers, and power dynamic markets like IoT, automotive, robotics, datacenters, and AI. 

  
**Our Fresh Look Amplifies Our IP Solutions** 
 
As the gold standard for RISC-V, SiFive’s reputation rests on our employees’ technical brilliance and our customers’ trust. Our new visual identity sharpens this story, spotlighting the innovation behind our IP. We’ve crafted a modern, clean, technology-forward design platform to showcase our products in the digital spaces where our customers engage. 
 
Our website is evolving into a self-service hub, empowering customers with datasheets, case studies, and rich product content to navigate our portfolio and draw inspiration from others’ successes. The refreshed imagery, inspired by real tape outs of SiFive’s IP, reflects the foundation of breakthroughs in modern computing. Our signature “ignite orange” remains and anchors a vibrant visual “forge” of creativity, symbolizing the fire of innovation and the enduring spark of our founders’ RISC-V vision. Our iconic logo remains unchanged—a bedrock of our commitment to great technology, exceptional service, and a workplace where brilliant ideas thrive.
 
  
**A Future-Focused Identity** 
 
Inside billions of chips powering devices across industries and across the the top tech companies of the world, SiFive IP is quietly improving lives and driving the technology ecosystem forward. Our updated brand weaves this story together, aligning our identity with the excellence of our engineering and the ingenuity of our customers’ designs. 
 
In the coming weeks, the new SiFive will take shape on [www.SiFive.com](www.sifive.com), with the refreshed identity rolling out across offices, product content, and marketing assets. The architectural changes to SiFive.com are more than cosmetic—they are part of a deeper commitment to creating a information rich gateway to help customers and their customers navigate our broad portfolio. Our vision is a more powerful destination for RISC-V innovators that enables customers to make informed decisions and to accelerate their path to building the next era of computing.
 
  
**Let us know what you think!** Explore our refreshed website to discover how SiFive’s IP can power your vision, and connect with us to share your ideas for the future of computing. 

SiFive’s New Look: A Reflection of Our Growth and Vision

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SiFive’s New Look: A Reflection of Our Growth and Vision 

If you missed the [press release](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250319007775/en/Cycuity-Collaborates-with-SiFive-and-BAE-Systems-to-Demonstrate-Advanced-Microelectronics-Design-Supply-Chain-Security?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=bookmark), SiFive is pleased to be working with [Cycuity](https://cycuity.com/) and [BAE Systems](https://www.baesystems.com/en/home).

In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, ensuring the security of microelectronics is more critical than ever. SiFive worked with Cycuity, a leading provider of hardware security solutions, and BAE Systems to demonstrate a groundbreaking approach to improving the security of third-party intellectual property (IP) in microelectronics design and supply chains.

**Addressing the Challenges of Third-Party IP Security**

As the demand for third-party IP components grows, so does the potential for system-level security vulnerabilities. These components are often highly configurable and programmable, making them more susceptible to security risks. Verifying the integrity and security of these IP components is essential to safeguarding microelectronic systems, particularly when these systems are used in critical applications like defense and commercial sectors.
Through our partnership, Cycuity, SiFive, and BAE Systems are developing a scalable, evidence-based security framework that enables comprehensive validation of third-party IP. This collaboration focuses on ensuring that third-party IP remains secure and trustworthy throughout the design lifecycle, providing designers with the confidence they need to integrate external components into complex systems.

**Cycuity’s Radix Technology**

Cycuity’s Radix technology creates a “security digital twin” of an IP block, allowing it to be re-verified by a system-on-chip (SoC) integrator at both the block level and full chip level. This process generates verifiable security evidence that assures the security of third-party IP throughout its lifecycle.
In a recent demonstration, Radix was successfully used to validate the integration, configuration, and security of SiFive’s [Intelligence™ X280](https://www.sifive.com/cores/intelligence-x200-series) RISC-V processor within a radiation-hardened SoC developed by BAE Systems. This demonstration showcases how Cycuity’s approach can provide strong, evidence-based assurance that third-party IP is secure, even in challenging environments like the defense industry.

**Supporting Innovation and Security in SoC Development**

For SoC developers, the ability to integrate third-party IP securely is a game-changer. John Ronco, SVP of Product at SiFive, highlighted the importance of using Radix to validate the secure integration of IP, noting that it empowers developers to innovate faster while maintaining high levels of security. This is particularly crucial in industries where both speed and security are paramount, such as in the development of advanced microelectronics for defense and commercial applications.

The partnership between Cycuity, SiFive, and BAE Systems is a strong step towards creating a more secure microelectronics ecosystem, where third-party IP can be safely integrated into cutting-edge systems without compromising security.

**Meeting the Strict Security Standards of Defense and Commercial Systems**

The need for robust, traceable security assurances is growing across the microelectronics ecosystem. As Gayatri Perlin, Secure by Design Group Lead at BAE Systems' FAST Labs™, explained, "Today’s defense and commercial systems must meet the increasing need for traceable security assurances across the microelectronics ecosystem." By focusing on design- and application-specific security requirements, the collaboration aims to ensure that third-party IP is thoroughly tested and secure, meeting the rigorous standards set by the Department of Defense (DoD) and other critical industries.

With this new framework, developers can be confident that their designs—whether for defense, aerospace, or commercial applications—are secure, reliable, and compliant with the highest security standards.

**A Step Toward Resilient Microelectronics for the Future**

By developing a secure ecosystem for third-party IP, Cycuity, SiFive, and BAE Systems are setting the stage for safer, more secure microelectronics in both defense and commercial applications. With increasing reliance on third-party components and complex designs, ensuring the security of these systems is essential for the continued innovation and reliability of modern technology.

As the demand for secure and reliable systems continues to grow, initiatives like this will play a crucial role in shaping the future of microelectronics design and supply chain security.




Cycuity has collaborated with SiFive and BAE Systems to deliver increased, evidence-based security assurance for third-party intellectual property (IP) in a cost-effective and repeatable manner.

Cycuity Partners with SiFive & BAE Systems to Strengthen Microelectronics Design Supply Chain Security

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Cycuity Partners with SiFive and BAE Systems to Strengthen Microelectronics Design Supply Chain Security

The advent of generative AI has brought an increased focus on datacenter design and optimization. Datacenter chips need to be high performance with low latency to power the latest AI workloads. At the same time, sustainability is a growing concern for datacenters, so datacenter chips need to be extremely efficient. Additionally, chips need to be designed with flexibility in mind so companies can scale the number of clusters as needed. ![Datacenter](https://images.prismic.io/sifive/Z88FFxsAHJWomSg9_SiFive_AI-Datacenter-Inovation_Blog_1000x500.jpg?auto=format,compress)

One of the extremely interesting and potentially disruptive announcements in the last couple of months has centered on Deepseek. Deepseek claims that its model uses significantly less computing resources than competitive options, and therefore uses less energy. Up until the end of 2024, the clear focus from customers we spoke to was time to deployment. Items like energy efficiency and cost took a back seat. I remember being in meetings in the middle of 2024 when our chief architect articulated a belief that the industry would enter a phase where sustainability is a much higher priority. Whether Deepseek ends up being a winner or not, the key takeaway is that new possibilities open up when technologists focus on different metrics. This will be an inflection point that causes companies to reevaluate system architectures as they scale out deployments more aggressively. 

Many companies are turning to RISC-V to meet these performance and efficiency challenges. One of the reasons that RISC-V is gaining popularity is its tremendous flexibility. If you are designing a system from scratch, it makes less sense to build on an existing ISA with historical baggage since you will have to use multiple types of software across the device or datacenter. The RISC-V architecture offers a clean slate in a flexible, modular design.

The [SiFive Performance P870-D](https://www.sifive.com/cores/performance-p870d) takes advantage of the flexibility of RISC-V to bring high compute density and scalability to datacenters, vehicles, and embedded systems. Higher compute density enables improved performance per watt, which offers advantages in total cost of ownership. The P870-D is specifically tailored to meet customer requirements for highly parallelizable infrastructure workloads including video streaming, storage, and web appliances. Find out more about the P870-D [here](https://www.sifive.com/cores/performance-p870d). 

When the P870-D is paired with products from the SiFive Intelligence product family, datacenter architects can also build an extremely high-performance, energy efficient compute subsystem for AI-powered applications. SiFive’s Intelligence XM Series stands out with its super scalable and efficient AI compute engine. By bringing together scalar, vector, and matrix engines together, the XM Series achieves much more efficient memory bandwidth while offering extremely high performance per watt. In addition to targeting datacenter applications, the XM Series is ideal for AI applications for edge IoT devices, consumer devices, next generation electric and/or autonomous vehicles, and beyond. Read more about the [XM Series here](https://www.sifive.com/cores/intelligence-xm-series).

To help companies speed up development time, SiFive is open sourcing a reference implementation of the SiFive Kernel Library (SKL). SKL is a fully optimized C/C++ library with a set of tuned routines that maximize algorithm throughput on SiFive processors. Additionally, SiFive offers a number of resources to help optimize large language models (LLMs). Take a look at our recent blog post on [SiFive’s AI/ML software stack](https://www.sifive.com/blog/sifive-accelerates-risc-v-vector-integration-in-xnnpack-for-optimized-ai-inference) for additional details. You can also check out our overview of [RISC-V software milestones](https://www.sifive.com/blog/risc-v-software-great-progress-in-2024-and-much-mo) over the past year.


Discover how SiFive is accelerating AI and datacenter innovation with flexible, energy-efficient RISC‑V solutions like the Performance P870-D and Intelligence XM Series, designed for high-performance workloads and sustainable scaling.

How SiFive is Driving AI and Datacenter Innovation

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As RISC-V technology broadens its reach from broad adoption in embedded use cases to growing deployments across a set of additional markets, one of the main questions I am asked relates to the readiness of software optimized for this processor architecture. Over the recent holiday period, I reflected on the significant progress on this front during 2024. The intent of this blog is to tie together a number of the important RISC-V software milestones and provide some hints as to the vector of travel for the year ahead.

Let’s start with the foundational elements of open source software. For many in the RISC-V ecosystem, this means the great work underway in the RISE Project whose stated mission is to accelerate the development of open source software for the RISC-V architecture.
![RISE](https://images.prismic.io/sifive/Z5KVlJbqstJ99zOd_Screenshot2025-01-23at10.32.42AM.png?auto=format,compress)
More specifically, this group of companies is coordinating and collaborating on the creation of high quality and high performance implementations of RISC-V across a range of areas including:
- Compilers and toolchains
- System libraries
- Kernel and virtualization
- Language runtimes
- Simulators/emulators
- Developer infrastructure

Some of the key milestones during 2024 included:
- Making Java v17, 21, 22, 23, 24 language runtimes available
- Distributing foundational [Python packages](https://gitlab.com/riseproject/python)
- Publishing the [RISC-V Optimization Guide](https://riscv-optimization-guide.riseproject.dev/) 
- Adding QEMU support for ACPI for PLIC and NUMA, RISC-V IOMMU, SMBIOS, and the RVA22 Profile
Debugging/profiling: 
- Upstreamed support of RISC-V vectors for a range of clients 
- Linux kernel: Upstreaming of interrupt (AIA) drivers with device tree (DT) and ACPI support


There are more details about the RISE Project’s work in this December [webinar](https://zoom.us/rec/play/nDuXpALC89GkOp1FMfqSEMSHbQ8BW4d2Rvh1n19RGvqPXcqGHAk-Eomy14rE7E4gy7vnZU3cIv8I8n4y.R3rhBNGp4UcsYpYy), along with some details of RISE’s plans for 2025.

A key theme for 2024 was optimizing software to harness RISC-V vector instructions. From my perspective, one of the best presentations last year that discussed the results of this work was the session by [Nathan Egge (Google)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asRnBcn5VKs&list=PL85jopFZCnbNtawxdgSiHf5W2Y8S2yHO5&index=7) that focused on optimizing the dav1d software decoder for RISC-V. 

2025 efforts will focus on supporting the hardware that aligns to the [RVA23 Profile](https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/23/rva23_profile_ratified/) that was recently ratified. RVA23 compliant hardware will be seeded out into the developer community from a range of companies, including SiFive. Having a common set of instructions that software can rely on to be present is vital to enable a software ecosystem—arguably multiple different ecosystems for a range of markets including consumer, data center and automotive—to coalesce. 

At SiFive, one area of primary focus for software is delivering code that is optimized for our processors. As a part of that, one of the areas we have heavily focused on for the last few years is (not surprisingly!) artificial intelligence (AI). There is clearly a big industry focus on running large language models (LLMs) and RISC-V is well suited for optimally running these workloads. SiFive recently showcased one example of a reference software stack (below) and discussed the performance we had seen from internal tests as part of a [webinar on LLM Optimization and Deployment on SiFive RISC-V Intelligence Products](https://www.sifive.com/blog/llm-optimization-and-deployment-on-sifive-intellig).
![RISC-V AI System Diagram](https://images.prismic.io/sifive/Z5KVlZbqstJ99zOe_Screenshot2025-01-23at10.33.16AM.png?auto=format,compress)

In this diagram of an AI system above, blue blocks represent the components that SiFive leverages from and contributes back to open source projects. The yellow blocks represent components provided by third-party vendors or communities, which SiFive leverages. The orange blocks represent the fundamental RISC-V building blocks, primarily owned and maintained by SiFive.
A big part of my role here at SiFive has been driving our broad technology portfolio into the data center. As we engaged with hyperscalers, it was clear that companies were designing and maintaining a range of dedicated servers performing functions that include:
- Storage
- Content delivery
- Load balancing 
- Web services
- Networking 
- Application services

When I talk to customers, many are surprised to hear that, with the exception of the last categories listed above, the software is in place NOW for RISC-V based hardware to run these workloads. Want to see how CEPH runs? You got it. Interested in Memcached? Okay! Particularly passionate about NGINX? Well, you get the picture. Of course, it is fair to say that this work is never done. For all areas, we envision pursuing the approach outlined in the slide below, with an iterative approach to porting and optimizing. This includes optimizing a range of software stacks for the RVA23 Profile.
![Diagram](https://images.prismic.io/sifive/Z5KVlZbqstJ99zOf_Screenshot2025-01-23at10.33.48AM.png?auto=format,compress)

In summary, while a lot of software work has been completed, there is a lot of work remaining ahead for the RISC-V community. We will prioritize our efforts based on the stated needs of our customers and continue to work closely with RISE and others to continue the rapid ecosystem growth. We welcome active participation from companies that want to see how SiFive and  the RISC-V community at large are addressing their needs, and we would love to hear more about areas that you view are currently underserved. SiFive is eager to collaborate with you on your next project and show you how 2025 is going to be a big year for RISC-V software readiness. 

To get in touch with the SiFive team, please visit our [contact page here](https://www.sifive.com/contact-sales). 




SiFive's Ian Ferguson covers important RISC-V software milestones & reviews some hints as to the vector of travel for the year ahead.

RISC-V Software Updates: Great Progress in 2024 and Much More Ahead in 2025

RISC-V Software: Great Progress in 2024 and Much More Ahead in 2025

This was my first time attending CES in (significantly) more than a decade. 141,000 attendees visited 4,500 exhibitors in the too-close-to-the-New-Year event in Las Vegas. As with most tradeshows, there were two levels to my conversations with customers and partners:
- Reviewing the products in the booths that showcased technology available now and available soon. 
- The conversations behind the scenes focused on the challenges faced with those products and the desire to solve those issues in next-generation products.

First, the obvious statement – AI was everywhere. All types of products were “AI enabled,” “AI powered,” and “AI infused.” This reminds me of the early phase of the Internet of Things (IoT) wave, when there was an intense focus on rushing connected platforms into the market, without stopping to build out a business plan that included market validation as to whether the connected platform addressed a meaningful problem. I remain unconvinced that an AI mirror, while quirky and fun, actually solves a problem that will drive a sustainable business over time. 

One clear exception is the potential of AI in the computing segment. NVIDIA’s Project DIGITS announcement and a slew of other news from the likes of Intel and AMD showed that computers that feature dedicated AI hardware will be a huge topic for 2025. This is a great opportunity for SiFive since:
The latest hardware needs to be optimized for performance, power, and area
These types of applications have no real ties to legacy software. 
SiFive offers a range of products for AI workload acceleration, including our Intelligence XM Series. 

![SiFive CES team](https://images.prismic.io/sifive/Z48FI5bqstJ99qYN_226A0023.jpg?auto=format,compress)
**Here is a snapshot from CES of me and of my amazing colleagues at SiFive**

Below are some other key takeaways from this year’s show: 
- **Wearables**: Companies showcased a diverse set of wearables, including a range of products that targeted different aspects of healthcare, such as quality of sleep. The  conversations about the requirements for the next generation systems centered heavily on energy efficiency as companies have incorporated more capabilities into their devices and must maintain or improve battery life. Two of the biggest challenges to maintain or improve battery life include efficiently moving data to/from memory and determining how/when/if to connect to the cloud. I heard a lot of discussions about different types of energy harvesting and architectures that shifted all or some of the processing into memory to make dramatic improvements in energy conservation. Additionally, there were a number of paper-based batteries on display as a more sustainable alternative compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries.

- **Automotive**: The majority of the automotive industry seems to have pulled back on Level 5 and Level 4 autonomy, except for specific well-controlled environments. Instead, many companies are looking at practical ADAS functionality to support a driver as opposed to replacing one. In this area, there were three main conversations:

- **Secure delivery of new functionality**; As Rivian said, with the exception of an interior light, every subsystem in a deployed vehicle needs to be updatable. The challenge is to do that in a way that doesn’t compromise the safety and security of the vehicle.

- **Supply chain resiliency**: Unlike the consumer segment, automotive products are expected to be viable for decades. Many fear that 2025 will be a year of industry consolidation. This need for longevity, combined with ongoing geopolitical activities and other seismic events like litigation and pricing changes in the chip industry, is creating serious cause for concern. This is one of the strongest commercial value propositions that RISC-V offers. RISC-V is driven by collaboration around an open standard and it will be around for decades to come. 

Faster development, less of everything else! (Weight, cost, size of electronics, etc): I’ve visited China multiple times over the past decade and one of the most staggering changes has been the domestic automotive industry. Non-household names in the U.S, like BYD Auto, Chery, Geely Auto, Great Wall Motor, and NIO, have displaced the traditional overseas brands and are planning to expand into new geographies. With the path to accelerate (and be more nimble) during product development, companies are shifting to a software-defined mindset. To support software-defined vehicles (and to achieve the “less” described above), the underlying system architecture is undergoing a radical change toward fewer, very performant computing platforms. This shift needs a processor architecture like RISC-V that can span the range from MCUs to HPC components with the same instruction set. SiFive sees significant growth in this segment as we help automakers deliver safe and secure products for connected vehicles. 

Embedded: While a lot of attention goes to the main (“applications”) processor in a laptop, TV, or smartphone, the reality is that these products include multiple processing elements. While the typical vector for the applications processor is around performance, increasingly these will incorporate different mixes of CPUs, GPGPUs, and NPUs since different workloads run optimally on different processor types. During CES, we heard loud and clear that: 
Additional processors are much more sensitive to cost and power. These include processors for applications like touchscreen controllers, storage, communications processors, and industrial sensors.

Incumbent suppliers have shifted their product roadmaps away from the needs of these processors, focusing instead on other use cases.

SiFive is helping a wide range of companies deliver AI infused capabilities into these small MCUs while meeting extremely tight power and cost targets. This underserved market represents a huge opportunity for SiFive and, indeed, the broader RISC-V community.

The next industry event that SiFive is planning to attend is Embedded World in mid-March. We will be showcasing our broad [RISC-V IP portfolio](https://www.sifive.com/risc-v-core-ip) and how it aligns to the above areas. We look forward to seeing you there!


Thoughts from CES

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