Rivos garnered attention in 2022 when Apple filed a trade secrets lawsuit against it, alleging that Rivos had recruited numerous Apple engineers and utilized confidential information to develop chips competing with Apple’s own products.
Rivos refuted these claims and countersued Apple for unfair competition. The lawsuit was eventually settled by Apple in February, coinciding with the resolution of separate litigation with several of the Apple engineers hired by Rivos.
With the legal dispute behind it, Rivos is intensifying its efforts to bring its chipset technology to market, as CEO Puneet Kumar revealed to TechCrunch.
“Rivos was established with the goal of crafting industry-leading, power-efficient, high-performance chips,” Kumar stated. “We are enthusiastic about catering to customers who are involved in developing data-driven solutions.”
To support its endeavors, Rivos secured a significant funding round.
On Tuesday, Rivos announced that it had raised over $250 million in an oversubscribed, extended Series A round led by Matrix Capital Management, with notable participation from chip giants such as Intel (via its corporate VC division) and MediaTek. Other investors included Cambium Capital, Hotung Venture Group, Walden Catalyst, Dell Technologies Capital, and Koch Disruptive Technologies.
This marks a notable turnaround for Rivos, which faced challenges in fundraising and recruitment amid the legal battle with Apple. Approximately a year ago, Rivos had to lay off nearly 6% of its workforce and postpone a planned $400 million Series A funding round.
A Focus on Custom Server Chips
Rivos’ long-term objective is to develop chips primarily for servers capable of handling intensive data analytics and AI workloads, including generative AI tasks.
Our target customers are those building data-driven solutions, particularly those utilizing generative AI and data analytics for decision-making,” Kumar explained. “Rivos supports the demanding hardware requirements of AI models and analytics that are reshaping the enterprise.
Rivos’ inaugural chipset is based on RISC-V, an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA).
ISAs serve as the technical foundation for every chip, dictating how software interacts with the hardware. While chip design teams typically license an existing ISA from established entities like Arm or Intel for general-purpose computing, RISC-V offers an open, royalty-free alternative.
Rivos’ chip incorporates a “data parallel accelerator” designed to accelerate AI- and big data-related computations, akin to a GPU tailored for tasks beyond graphics processing. It was manufactured using TSMC’s cutting-edge 3nm fabrication process, representing state-of-the-art technology. While several prominent companies are expected to adopt TSMC’s process for upcoming chip families, Apple was the sole user of this technology in 2024 for its M3 chipset series.
In addition to chip development, Rivos is working on self-contained data center hardware based on the Open Compute Project modular standard, which will serve as plug-and-play chip housing. Additionally, it is creating a “firmware-to-app” software stack for programming the chip.
Revenue Model and Competitive Landscape
Although Rivos is currently pre-revenue, it plans to generate revenue by offering its hardware and complementary software solutions to large data center operators. David Goel, an early investor, emphasized Rivos’ streamlined adoption process as a key differentiator in the competitive chip market.
“The Rivos team has successfully integrated the revolutionary RISC-V architecture with an innovative accelerator, bringing this vision to fruition,” Goel commented. “Their prototype chip serves as a compelling demonstration of their unique capabilities.”
However, Rivos faces formidable competition in the field of custom data center chips, with major tech companies and numerous startups vying for market share.
Tech giants, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta, are actively developing in-house chips for AI and big data analytics. Additionally, numerous startups, such as Groq, Tenstorrent, and Rebellions, are targeting the custom data center chip market, which is projected to reach $10 billion this year and double by 2025.
While Nvidia currently dominates the chip market, Rivos aims to carve out its niche with its innovative approach and advanced technology. With substantial funding and a dedicated team, Rivos is poised to expand its manufacturing capabilities and enhance its platform and software engineering efforts.
The rapid advancements in generative AI and the integration with the data analytics stack underscore the importance of accelerators that are easy to program and debug,” Kumar noted. “Rivos addresses this need through our ‘recompile-not-redesign’ approach.
