RISC-V Stalworth SiFive Lays Off 20% of Staff

[Daniel Nenni]

Rumors have been swirling last week. It looks like new management will be stepping in. SiFive has had a revolving door since the beginning with many of my friends churning through there and nothing good to say about their experience.

From SiFive:

“As we adjust to the rapidly changing semiconductor end markets, SiFive is realigning across all of our teams and geographies to better take advantage of the opportunities ahead, reduce operational complexities and increase our ability to respond quickly to customer product requirements. Unfortunately, as a result some positions were eliminated last week. The employees are being offered severance and outplacement assistance. SiFive continues to be excited about the momentum and long-term outlook for our business and RISC-V.”

As we identify and focus on our greatest opportunities, SiFive is shifting to best meet our customers’ fast-changing requirements by undergoing a strategic refocusing of all our global teams.

Unfortunately, with this realignment, approximately 20% of employees (130 people) across all different business groups and levels were impacted. The employees are receiving severance and outplacement assistance.

SiFive continues to be excited about the long-term opportunities for the company and for RISC-V. The growth of the company has never been stronger and the opportunities never better. We are well funded for years in the future and continue to work with the market leaders in every segment.

We remain focused on our four product groups, essential, intelligence, performance and automotive, and as we explained in a press event earlier this month, have a robust roadmap to meet the needs of these markets. We see tremendous new opportunities in AI and with Consumer products like wearables and mobile as Google brings Android to the RISC-V ecosystem.

We will continue to offer customization for specific customers, offering standard and custom products where it makes sense from a business standpoint.

SiFive - Leading the RISC-V Revolution​

​

 

[hist78]

"As we adjust to the rapidly changing semiconductor end markets, SiFive is realigning across all of our teams and geographies to better take advantage of the opportunities ahead, reduce operational complexities and increase our ability to respond quickly to customer product requirements. Unfortunately, as a result some positions were eliminated last week. The employees are being offered severance and outplacement assistance. SiFive continues to be excited about the momentum and long-term outlook for our business and RISC-V.”


I am always amazed by the texts issued by those companies that just fired people. They want you feel the Christmas is coming next week or a birthday party will be held tonight.

 

[Markwrob]

From the write up on The Register, it mentioned most engineering, most marketing and most management were sacked. Sounds alot more like 4 out of 5 made redundant rather than 1 out of 5.

There are others working with this IP, hopefully the SiFive folks will land on their feet.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

From the write up on The Register, it mentioned most engineering, most marketing and most management were sacked. Sounds alot more like 4 out of 5 made redundant rather than 1 out of 5.

There are others working with this IP, hopefully the SiFive folks will land on their feet.

The market for chip designers is very strong right now so no worries. Marketing, admin, etc... not so much. Word is they are running out of money which is a big surprise considering:

Chip Designer SiFive Raises $175 Million, Setting Stage for IPO

Chip startup SiFive Inc. raised $175 million from investors such as Intel Corp. and Qualcomm Inc., giving it enough funding to work toward going public.

www.bloomberg.com

I will see them at the RISC-V Summit next month.

 

[count]

The market for chip designers is very strong right now so no worries. Marketing, admin, etc... not so much. Word is they are running out of money which is a big surprise considering:

Chip Designer SiFive Raises $175 Million, Setting Stage for IPO

Chip startup SiFive Inc. raised $175 million from investors such as Intel Corp. and Qualcomm Inc., giving it enough funding to work toward going public.

www.bloomberg.com

I will see them at the RISC-V Summit next month.

Companies raise money to target 2 year runways. If they raised in 2022, that means they probably have enough money at that burnrate to last until 2024 (probably when they planned to IPO). What's probably happening is that IPO market is not great and VC has really pulled back so it's harder to raise capital, and if you do raise capital the terms are not as good as before. So management is probably thinking, lets slow down, cut costs, and extend our runway into 2025 and hopefully it'll be a better market by then.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Companies raise money to target 2 year runways. If they raised in 2022, that means they probably have enough money at that burnrate to last until 2024 (probably when they planned to IPO). What's probably happening is that IPO market is not great and VC has really pulled back so it's harder to raise capital, and if you do raise capital the terms are not as good as before. So management is probably thinking, lets slow down, cut costs, and extend our runway into 2025 and hopefully it'll be a better market by then.

True, but from what I was told by an insider it is more than that. SiFive claims "to have money for years to come" but the depth of the engineering cuts suggest a serious pivot is coming. There was also a big management cut and rumors of an investor pull out. The truth will come out shortly. It will dominate the hallway talk at the upcoming RISC-V Summit, absolutely. They invited me to a dinner during RISC-V Summit at Levi Stadium. Pricey venue!

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Nice one Anton! Gotta get those clicks. (130 people is not hundreds and they were not all RISC-V developers).

SiFive Lays Off Hundreds of RISC-V Developers​

By Anton Shilov

 

[Daniel Nenni]

The pivot is from being an IP supplier to a design services company. It is funny because SiFive bought Open-Silicon, a very large design services company, then sold it to Alphawave Semiconductor at a significant loss. Hopefully there is more to this story.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Statement from SiFive co-founder on LinkedIn:


Krste AsanovicKrste Asanovic• 2nd• 2ndSiFive Inc., Professor at UC BerkeleySiFive Inc., Professor at UC Berkeley
https://www.linkedin.com/in/krste-a...ofile:ACoAABvNSkgBE0wrhmwfyOEC6T0CDoDuQ0Q3fFw
The internet is a wonderful creation, but unfortunately has also enabled misinformation to be created and spread at light speed, rewarding this behavior with accrued clicks.

SiFive grew very rapidly over the last few years in response to accelerating customer demand. As anyone who has managed a real engineering organization will appreciate, rapid growth can sometimes lead to misalignment with company objectives. At SiFive, we made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce by approximately 20% across the entire organization as part of a restructuring effort, even though we are financially strong with fully committed investors and a large order book. We thank all of our current and previous team members for all their contributions that have helped SiFive get to where it is today. We are not changing our business model or product families, but are positioning SiFive for long-term success as the leading supplier of compute solutions built around the open standard RISC-V ISA. #riscv

 

[blueone]

SiFive grew very rapidly over the last few years in response to accelerating customer demand. As anyone who has managed a real engineering organization will appreciate, rapid growth can sometimes lead to misalignment with company objectives.

Baloney, unless the company objectives change after the growth phase.