SiFive Makes Tough Decisions; Laying Off 20% of Its Workforce

SiFive reducing workforce and shifting to standard chip design

Chip design startup SiFive has recently terminated approximately 130 working professionals from their company. The number of staff marks around 20% of its employees. The California-based company, SiFive, doesn't manufacture the chips themselves. They design the underlying structures for chips. They specialize in creating chip designs using the open architecture RISC-V. SiFive and Arm Holdings has an ongoing competition as both the companies operate in the same industry and offer similar services or products.

SiFive, valued at approximately $2.5 billion in 2022, has explained that the customer demand is changing rapidly with time. The plan of staff reductions that they have opted for will serve as a strategic shift for the company. The change in the overall maneuver will align better with rapidly changing client’s needs. This realignment affects all global teams within the company, including executives.

However, the company maintains its long-term plans and continues to produce chips used in various applications. The application platforms include artificial intelligence, automotive, consumer electronics, and low-power devices. The company reassures that it has sufficient funding for the foreseeable future.

SiFive is known for providing highly specialized, custom designed chips to their customers. As the experts have claimed, the decision of SiFive to lay off their staff will highly impact their effort of providing customized chips. They will now shift their focus from creating unique, tailor-made chip designs for individual customers to using standard, pre-made designs that can be used by multiple customers.

SiFive works in an industry where big companies like Qualcomm and Google's Alphabet are using RISC-V technology. This is happening at a time when RISC-V has become important in the U.S.-China technology rivalry.