Hong Kong investment department supports Starfive in PUSH, China’s RISC-V startup technology

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Hong Kong investment department supports Starfive in PUSH, China’s RISC-V startup technology

According to China’s founder, Shanghai-based semiconductor startups aim to boost their bargaining chips with financial support from the Hong Kong government as China bets on open source RISC-VV construction to strengthen its chip industry and escalate amid rising tensions with the United States.

The six-year-old RISC-V chipmaker received an undisclosed sum from Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIC), which manages HK$62 billion (US$8 billion) in funding to promote innovation in the city.

Founder and CEO Thomas Xu Tao said in an interview that the partnership will enable Hong Kong to support Starfive to launch the RISC-V chip application in the city.

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“RISC-V has gone beyond the initial stages of its basic research…its current focus is on real-world applications,” Xu said. “Implementing use cases at an early stage is indeed difficult and requires government guidance.”

RISC-V (pronounced “Risk Five”) is an open source instruction set architecture that allows developers to configure and customize their chip designs. It competes with the architecture of Intel’s X86 and Arm Holdings, which dominates the personal computer and smartphone markets, respectively.

China has been investing heavily in RISC-V, an open source hardware instruction set architecture. Photo: ShutterStock Alt = China has been investing heavily in RISC-V, an open source hardware instruction set architecture. Photo: Shutterstock>

Although RISC-V is not as widely used as ARM or X86, and most of its products still lag behind performance, its open source code base and energy efficiency have driven its growing popularity in recent years.

Chinese companies and governments hope RISC-V can reduce reliance on foreign suppliers as the United States tightens export controls on advanced chip technology. Hong Kong has also committed to developing its RISC-V industry to drive economic growth in the city and secure a position in China’s semiconductor landscape.

“The design and application of RISC-V open source chips is an important part of strategic planning [Hong Kong’s] Future,” said Paul Chan Mo-Po, the city’s finance director, in his weekly blog on Sunday.

According to Xu, Starfive’s Towngas Chip, a RISC-V processor, was launched in November 2022 with Hong Kong and China Natural Gas Corporation (Towngas) and will be deployed in Hong Kong’s smart gas meter as early as the second quarter.

Starfive’s partnership with HKIC may open up larger use cases as Towngas Chip remains relatively “small and narrow” in its application scope.

“Their recognition is very important to us,” he said.

Peter Lee Ka-kit, the eldest son of the late real estate tycoon Lee Shau-kee. Photo: Dickson Lee Alt = Peter Lee Ka-kit, the eldest son of late real estate tycoon Lee Shau-Kee. Photo: Dickson Lee>

Ful Division Capital is the family office of Peter Lee Ka-kit, Chairman of Towngas and co-chair of Henderson Land Development, one of the leading developers in Hong Kong founded by his father Lee Shau-Kee. Elder Lee, the wealthiest man in Hong Kong, died earlier this week at the age of 97, according to Forbes.

Starfive also plans to launch a more advanced 12nm RISC-V processor designed for the data center server “Lion Rock” on a famous mountain in Hong Kong. Xu said mass production of Lion Rock could start at the end of this year or early next year.

Founded Starfive in 2019, XU recognizes the opportunities RISC-V offers for new chip manufacturers, a market dominated by competitors focused on proprietary technology.

Chan said around that time, Peter Lee began looking for local chip companies as the U.S. government imposed a seven-year export ban on ZTE, which cut the Chinese telecom equipment giant’s basic components and services.

“At that time he was already telling us that China ultimately needed to develop its own chips,” Chen said.

China has been doubling on RISC-V. In January, a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the highest government research organization, announced plans to offer its RISC-V-based Xiangshan Central processing division this year.

Last month, Alibaba Group-owned semiconductor unit T-Head unveiled the server-level Xuantie C930 RISC-V processor, designed for high-performance computing applications, including data center servers and autonomous vehicles. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

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