US-based chip-tech group moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears
- The RISC-V Foundation sets standards for the core chip architecture and controls who can use its trademark on products
- The organisation has more than 325 members, including Qualcomm, Alibaba and Huawei
A United States-based foundation overseeing promising semiconductor technology developed with Pentagon support will soon move to Switzerland after several of the group’s foreign members raised concerns about potential US trade curbs.
The non-profit RISC-V Foundation – pronounced “risk-five” – wants to ensure that universities, governments and companies outside the US can help develop its open-source technology, the organisation’s chief executive, Calista Redmond, said in an interview with Reuters.
She said the foundation’s global collaboration has faced no restrictions to date but members are “concerned about possible geopolitical disruption”.
“From around the world, we’ve heard that ‘If the incorporation was not in the US, we would be a lot more comfortable’,” Redmond said. She said the foundation’s board of directors approved the move unanimously, but declined to disclose which members prompted it.
Created in 2015, the RISC-V Foundation sets standards for the core chip architecture and controls who can use the RISC-V trademark on products, as other organisations do for Wi-fi and Bluetooth chips. It does not own or control the technology.
More than 325 companies or other entities pay to be members, including US and European chip suppliers such as Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors, as well as China’s Alibaba Group Holding and Huawei Technologies.