Open-Silicon was an American semiconductor company based in California that was founded in 2003. The company was a

fabless semiconductor company Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclu ...

that focused on custom

System on Chip A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with memory, input/output, and dat ...

(SoC) designs. Open-Silicon was acquired by

SiFive SiFive, Inc. is an United States, American Fabless manufacturing, fabless semiconductor company and provider of commercial RISC-V processors and Integrated circuit, silicon chips based on the RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA). Its product ...

in September, 2021 and was renamed as OpenFive. The unit was subsequently sold by SiFive in March 2022 to Alphawave Semi.

Corporate history

Open-Silicon was founded in 2003 by Naveed Sherwani, Satya Gupta and Scott Houghton. Initial funding was provided by

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...

Norwest Venture Partners Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is an American venture and growth equity investment firm. The firm targets early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, ...

, and ''InterWest Partners''. In December 2007 ''Unicorn Investment Bank'' acquired 75% of Open-Silicon for $190M, with the rest of the company employee-owned. In May 2007, Open-Silicon acquired Zenasis Technologies, a maker of processor optimization EDA software. This technology has also been expanded by Open-Silicon to focus on low power design and process variability management. In 2009 Open-Silicon acquired design services firm Silicon Logic Engineering (SLE). This acquisition has enhanced the company's derivative IC design capabilities. In 2010 the company opened new facilities in

Research Triangle Park Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States; it occupies in North Carolina and hosts more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers. It is owned and managed by the Research Triangle Foundation, a private non-profi ...

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

, and

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

, India, to provide additional support for derivative IC design. Open-Silicon's business model for its ASIC development process was called the OpenMODEL. In 2012, Open-Silicon acquired and grew substantial design operations in

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. On August 17, 2020,

acquired Open-Silicon and renamed it OpenFive, an independent business unit of SiFive. On Sept. 1, 2022, Canadian semiconductor licensing company Alphawave Semi acquired SiFive’s OpenFive business unit for $210 million.

References

{{reflist

External links

SiFive Home pageAlphawave Semi Home page
Electronics companies established in 2003 Fabless semiconductor companies Semiconductor companies of the United States 2003 establishments in California American companies established in 2003 2020 mergers and acquisitions 2022 mergers and acquisitions