Intel has launched a new $1 billion investment fund in support of semiconductor companies working on open source RISC-V processors and other chip innovations.
The company says it will look to support both early-stage startups and established companies building disruptive technologies for the foundry industry.
The focus of Intel’s Innovation Fund will be on laying the foundation for modular products that make use of multiple instruction set architectures (ISA), from Intel’s own x86 to Arm and RISC-V.
Intel also announced it will join RISC-V International, a global nonprofit organization supporting the RISC-V instruction set architecture and extensions.
Intel embraces RISC-V
As part of the new scheme, Intel will partner with Andes Technology, Esperanto Technology, SiFive and Ventana Micro Systems to offer a range of validated RISC-V IP cores.
By optimizing IP for its own process technologies, Intel will ensure RISC-V will work as best it can on silicon manufactured by Intel Foundry Services (IFS), across all types of cores.
The company will offer three types of RISC-V products: partner products built on IFS technologies, RISC-V cores licensed as differentiated IP and chiplet building blocks based on RISC-V.
“Foundry customers are rapidly embracing a modular design approach to differentiate their products and accelerate time to market,” said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO.
“Intel Foundry Services is well-positioned to lead this major industry inflection. With our new investment fund and open chiplet platform, we can help drive the ecosystem to develop disruptive technologies across the full spectrum of chip architectures.”