Internal CPU Development Shrinks SiFive Market

The real risk is not just more RISC-V competition, it is that the biggest future buyers can stop being buyers at all. SiFive sells CPU blueprints and integration help, so every large company that builds its own core removes a high value license, a long tail royalty stream, and a powerful ecosystem sponsor that could have pushed RISC-V tools and standards forward across the market.

• SiFive is still early in monetization, with about $38.2M of 2023 revenue, roughly 60% from IP licenses and 30% from design services. That makes lost design wins especially painful, because the company needs new programs today to create royalties years later.
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• Internal teams now span both hyperscalers and startups built to become internal teams. Rivos was founded by veterans from Google, Intel, Apple, and PA-Semi, is building its own server class RISC-V CPU, and in 2024 raised more than $250M to tape out silicon, which is exactly demand that does not flow to an outside licensor.
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• The remaining opportunity shifts toward customers that want custom chips without carrying a full CPU organization, and toward segments like automotive, industrial, and infrastructure where long lifecycles make support and certification matter more than absolute architectural control. At the same time, Arm is cutting entry cost with Flexible Access, which squeezes SiFive from the other side.
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Going forward, the prize for SiFive is not winning the largest internal silicon shops, it is becoming the default CPU supplier for everyone one tier below them. If hyperscalers keep internalizing top end CPU work, SiFive’s path gets narrower but more defined, centered on repeatable mid market design wins, safety certified cores, and customers that need customization without building a Rivos sized team.