3 ms·

Presumably lots of runway for salaries until next funding round or exit event

OhMeadhbh 3y ago
Intel publicly walked away from a $2B offer for SiFive, which means that at least one large chip manufacturer does not believe their IP is worth more than $2B. I'm not sure if the Round F post-money valuation was made public, but if it's more than $2B, SiFive will need to have a solid story for why a potential buyer should pay more than what Intel didn't want to pay. And if they're going to IPO, it would be helpful to have a reference customer for newer designs which seem to be on par with ARM offerings from four years ago. It's certainly not impossible, but it seems a tough row to hoe. But the cool part of this is that the ISA and many supporting packages (rocket, boom, etc.) are "open" and "free as in beer." Even if SiFive did fail, an IP investment in RISC-V would not necessarily have been a bad move. Which is why I said I'm fairly bullish on RISC-V (cause even if SiFive fails, customers existing investment in the ISA is not lost) but bearish on SiFive (because I fear their existing valuation may be too inflated.) I'm not trying to tell anyone their SiFive baby is ugly. I'm not saying designing a RISC-V solution is a bad move. I'm just saying from my perspective, with incomplete information about what's going on inside SiFive, it looks like they have a difficult road ahead. I would POSITIVELY WELCOME any information regarding reference customers or catalog parts which might imply there's a large customer who's signed on the dotted line to pay SiFive a royalty for using their designs. Full disclosure: I own no SIFIVE stock (or options) nor do I own stock in any company that competes in the RISC-V design space (Esperanto, Andes, Sandisk/WD, etc.) I still have stock in TXN though, but I haven't heard that they're deep in RISC-V. I am a former employee of SiFive, but was not employed in a management position; don't take my comments as being based on "inside information."
- brucehoult 3y ago
  Intel walked away? It was my impression the Intel offer was unsolicited and it was SiFive who said "nah, not interested".

Intel publicly walked away from a $2B offer for SiFive, which means that at least one large chip manufacturer does not believe their IP is worth more than $2B. I'm not sure if the Round F post-money valuation was made public, but if it's more than $2B, SiFive will need to have a solid story for why a potential buyer should pay more than what Intel didn't want to pay. And if they're going to IPO, it would be helpful to have a reference customer for newer designs which seem to be on par with ARM offerings from four years ago. It's certainly not impossible, but it seems a tough row to hoe. But the cool part of this is that the ISA and many supporting packages (rocket, boom, etc.) are "open" and "free as in beer." Even if SiFive did fail, an IP investment in RISC-V would not necessarily have been a bad move. Which is why I said I'm fairly bullish on RISC-V (cause even if SiFive fails, customers existing investment in the ISA is not lost) but bearish on SiFive (because I fear their existing valuation may be too inflated.) I'm not trying to tell anyone their SiFive baby is ugly. I'm not saying designing a RISC-V solution is a bad move. I'm just saying from my perspective, with incomplete information about what's going on inside SiFive, it looks like they have a difficult road ahead. I would POSITIVELY WELCOME any information regarding reference customers or catalog parts which might imply there's a large customer who's signed on the dotted line to pay SiFive a royalty for using their designs. Full disclosure: I own no SIFIVE stock (or options) nor do I own stock in any company that competes in the RISC-V design space (Esperanto, Andes, Sandisk/WD, etc.) I still have stock in TXN though, but I haven't heard that they're deep in RISC-V. I am a former employee of SiFive, but was not employed in a management position; don't take my comments as being based on "inside information."

brucehoult 3y ago
Intel walked away? It was my impression the Intel offer was unsolicited and it was SiFive who said "nah, not interested".