STMicroelectronics Joins RISC-V Venture with Top Firms

STMicroelectronics NV, a prominent European semiconductor firm, has announced its formal involvement with the RISC-V organization Quintauris GmbH, becoming its sixth-largest shareholder.

In August of last year, five leading semiconductor companies—Qualcomm, NXP, Bosch, Infineon, and Nordic—joined forces to establish a new entity dedicated to advancing the global adoption of RISC-V through support for next-generation hardware. Quintauris was officially founded in December 2023 as a result of this initiative.

Based in Germany, Quintauris is set to accelerate the commercialization of products built on the open-source RISC-V architecture. The company's mission is to provide a unified source for RISC-V-compatible products, thus avoiding fragmentation, offering reference architectures, and enabling widely accepted industry solutions. While its initial focus will be on automotive applications, Quintauris plans to extend its reach into mobile and IoT sectors over time.

RISC-V, an open-standard instruction set architecture (ISA), was initially developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2010. With increasing global emphasis on chip independence, RISC-V has gained substantial traction due to its open-source, streamlined, and scalable features. By the end of 2023, the RISC-V International Foundation had grown to 4,423 members, reflecting a 28% increase from the previous year and spanning over 70 countries.

Alexander Kocher, CEO of Quintauris, stated, "STMicroelectronics is a valued addition to our shareholder roster. Our aim is to harness and unlock the potential of RISC-V across various industries by fostering collaboration among leading semiconductor companies."