SiFive to adopt Nvidia technology for speedy links between chips

By Stephen Nellis

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 15 Reuters) - SiFive, which makes blueprints for parts of complex chips, said on Thursday it will become the first maker of RISC-V chip designs to integrate Nvidia NVDA.O technology that creates speedy links between chips.

Like SoftBank's 9984.T Arm Holdings - an industry giant, SiFive provides customers with blueprints so that they can build their own full chip designs. RISC-V is an open-standard alternative to Arm's blueprints that has drawn fresh interest from companies like Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google and Meta META.O as more details have emerged about Arm's ambitions to become a chip designer in its own right.

Nvidia's NVLink creates speedy links between central processing units (CPUs) and Nvidia's AI chips. Those links are essential in AI data centers where thousands of chips must be strung together to process huge amounts of data seamlessly.

SiFive CEO Patrick Little said SiFive chip designs with the technology will not likely hit the market until 2027 or later. But when they do, customers will be able to connect a RISC-V CPU to Nvidia's leading AI chips with the same speeds as CPUs that use Intel INTC.O or Arm technology.

"This is a multi-generational commitment from both companies to get to work on this and offer the best NVLink solution, generation after generation after generation," he told Reuters in an interview.

Nvidia and SiFive did not disclose financial terms of the deal.

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

((stephen.nellis@thomsonreuters.com))