The ESD Alliance hosted an engrossing evening in the early days of RISC-V featuring two of its authors. At the time, RISC-V was a fledgling concept and it’s doubtful anyone there that night would have believed how quickly it was adopted across the semiconductor industry.

On the eve of the RISC-V Summit North America, it’s a great time to look back on its beginning and how it became a semiconductor industry phenomenon. For answers, I turned to Calista Redmond, CEO of RISC-V International, and Tiffany Sparks, its Director of Marketing.

Smith: RISC-V as an open standard is starting to take root in the mainstream semiconductor industry and it’s not just DYIers or hobbyists. What’s changed? Is this the wave of the future?

Redmond: Due to RISC-V being an open standard, the playing field is level, enabling companies of all sizes to engage in custom computing without the traditional challenges associated with licensing, royalties, and design limitations in proprietary models. Combined with the open foundational architecture of RISC-V, this reduced barrier to entry is a significant factor why RISC-V is taking root, and why it is here to stay.

More than 3,900 RISC-V members across 70 countries contribute and collaborate to define RISC-V open specifications as well as convene and govern related technical, industry, domain, and special interest groups. While our roots were born in academia, industry stakeholders were invested from the beginning. As new workloads demanded a more flexible and open design approach, investment in RISC-V began to soar.

RISC-V is an open, global standard. This is a critical distinction in that we freeze and ratify the essential specifications. As an open standard, anyone may leverage RISC-V as a building block in their open or proprietary solutions and services. This created a new model for companies of all sizes to engage in custom compute.

RISC-V is a transformative force shaping the future of hardware and software design and computing. As for the future, I would say it is here to stay.
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The Electronic System Design (ESD) industry continues to prove its value to the entire electronics supply chain as we report a revenue increase of 5.3% to $3,962.7 million in the second quarter of 2023. That’s up from $3,763.6 million in the second quarter of 2022, according to the latest Electronic Design Market Data (EDMD) report. The four-quarter moving average that compares the most recent four quarters to the prior four rose 9.5%.

Likewise, companies tracked in the EDMD report employed 59,160 people globally in Q2 2023, an 11.8% jump over the Q2 2022 headcount of 52,918 and up 2.5% compared to Q1 2023.

“Total license and maintenance revenue, which includes all design tools, was strong at 16.1% overall with double-digit growth in all regions except Japan,” remarks Wally Rhines, Executive Sponsor of the SEMI EDMD report. He added that growth in total electronic design automation (EDA) revenue in Q2 23 was limited by weak semiconductor IP (SIP) revenue.

The table highlights percentage growth for the industry by major category.
Source: SEMI EDMD

This week’s quarterly EDMD report includes revenue information broken down by category and geographic areas. For example, Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) revenue jumped 19.7% to $1,512.4 million as the four-quarter CAE moving average increased 17.6%. IC Physical Design and Verification revenue rose 14.2% to $689 million and the four-quarter moving average increased 17.2%. Printed Circuit Board and Multi-Chip Module (PCB and MCM) revenue increased 6.3% to $369 million. The four-quarter moving average for PCB and MCM rose 11.7%. Services revenue increased 5.2% to $137.5 million as the four-quarter Services moving average rose 12.3%.

Only Semiconductor Intellectual Property (SIP) revenue decreased –– 11.6% to $1,255 million with the four-quarter SIP moving average falling 1.6%.

Two regions reported declines in Q2 2023 –– the Americas and Japan. The Americas, the largest reporting region by revenue, landed $1,627.9 million of electronic system design products and services in Q2 2023, an 0.6% decline, though the four-quarter moving average for the Americas rose 7.5%. Japan’s procurement of electronic system design products and services decreased 4.3% to $241.6 million as the four-quarter moving average for Japan fell 0.3%.
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