SiFive Appoints Naveed Sherwani as CEO

Industry veteran joins inventors of RISC-V as open-source hardware revolution accelerates and RISC-V Foundation grows over 400% in past year

SAN FRANCISCO – August 15, 2017 – SiFive, the first fabless provider of customized, open-source-enabled semiconductors, today announced that industry veteran Naveed Sherwani has joined the company as CEO to lead it through its next phase of growth. Stefan Dyckerhoff, who had held the top spot at the company since its inception, will remain a member of the SiFive board of directors.

“Naveed brings a lifetime of experience not only in the semiconductor and open source sectors, but also in growing successful startups into industry leaders,” Dyckerhoff said. “SiFive has achieved significant industry milestones since its founding, and we continue to drive innovations that are leveling the playing field for those priced out of the traditional silicon market. We are excited to have Naveed join the team, and look forward to further growth under his leadership.”

Sherwani joins SiFive with more than 25 years of experience in the industry at companies including Intel, Brite Semiconductor and Open Silicon. Over the course of his career, Sherwani has been involved in the development of more than 300 chips, and, through his work as founder and CEO of Open Silicon, was instrumental in leading the development of ASIC technologies, which offered lower cost alternatives to traditional, less reliable legacy offerings.

Sherwani’s appointment is the latest in a string of key additions to the SiFive team, which continues to grow, attracting top talent from companies including Altera, ARM, Atmel, Cadence Design Systems, Cisco, Intel, Juniper, Marvell, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Synopsys and Xilinx. To accommodate this growing team, SiFive has recently moved to a new San Mateo location. The company also recently raised $8.5 million in Series B funding, led by Spark Capital, with participation from Osage University Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures.

“SiFive is leading a revolution in the semiconductor industry,” Sherwani said. “By democratizing the design process, the entire spectrum of innovation will shift from a handful of centralized design centers to every corner of the world. When this happens, our industry will see a renaissance of new ideas, brought to life by new talent attracted by the prospect of changing the status quo.”

SiFive was founded by the inventors of RISC-V – Andrew Waterman, Yunsup Lee and Krste Asanovic – with a mission to democratize access to custom silicon. In its first six months of availability, more than 1,000 HiFive1 software development boards have been purchased and delivered to developers in over 40 countries. Additionally, the company has engaged with multiple customers across its IP and SoC products, started shipping the industry’s first RISC-V SoC in November 2016 and announcing the availability of its Coreplex RISC-V based IP earlier this year. SiFive’s innovative “study, evaluate, buy” licensing model dramatically simplifies the IP licensing process, and removes traditional barriers that have limited access to customized, leading edge silicon.

About SiFive

SiFive is the first fabless provider of customized semiconductors based on the free and open RISC-V instruction set architecture. Founded by RISC-V inventors Yunsup Lee, Andrew Waterman and Krste Asanovic, SiFive democratizes access to custom silicon by helping system designers reduce time-to-market and realize cost savings with customized RISC-V based semiconductors. SiFive is located in Silicon Valley and has venture backing from Sutter Hill Ventures, Spark Capital and Osage University Partners. For more information, visit www.sifive.com.