Memory giant SK Hynix has invested in RISC-V supplier Semidynamics, helping the CPU designer expand into chips, boards, and systems for data-center AI inference. The Spanish startup joins Arm and fellow European RISC-V supplier Codasip in moving beyond IP.
Semidynamics Evolves from RISC-V IP to AI Systems
Semidynamics began as a design services company. It continued providing services as it entered the IP market, offering to perform “open-core surgery” on its designs to adapt them to customer requirements. As the AI boom ignited, the RISC-V community adapted the architecture to include vector and matrix (tensor) extensions. Semidynamics added these capabilities to its CPUs, creating an efficient core for AI applications and complementing its Gazillion Misses memory-access technology. Addressing access bottlenecks is essential to memory-intensive AI processing. The company’s focus here and on processing are cornerstones of its push into AI hardware.
RISC-V Supplier Challenges
A design-services business isn’t scalable: each additional sale incurs proportionally more costs. The IP business is scalable: a company can complete a design and sell it multiple times at little incremental cost. However, the RISC-V market is overcrowded. A regional champion can be viable in China, which heavily favors local technology and has many customers. Europe has less design activity than Asia or North America, and customers are free to choose IP suppliers from elsewhere, resulting in an inhospitable environment even for EU-backed companies like Semidynamics.
Bottom Line
Against this backdrop, Semidynamics is diversifying beyond IP. Chips, boards, and systems provide more profit per unit. They also afford the company the opportunity to show off its CPUs, Gazillion Misses, and other technology. It has convinced SK Hynix of their value, and silicon will help convince potential licensees. Mobile- and embedded-chip licensees remain important to Semidynamics, even as it develops silicon for the data center. But in tackling that market, the company is leaping into another crowded market—one that has dominant suppliers and towering system and software requirements.