The company appears well positioned to challenge CPU incumbents with high performance RISC-V CPUs and Vector Extensions to the open ISA architecture.
The RISC-V CPU Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) is emerging as a serious challenger to current CPUs based on proprietary architectures, creating new opportunities for chip designers and investors alike. While RISC-V first gained traction in the low-end embedded market, where the open ISA model afforded more cost-effective designs, RISC-V is now getting more wind in its sails due to performance and power efficiency, especially with vector enhancements. Behind all the RISC-V buzz, SiFive is the company that makes many of the innovations of the open-source CPU architecture available and so appealing.