NextSilicon builds software-defined hardware accelerators and RISC-V processors for high-performance computing, including the Maverick-2 dataflow accelerator and the Arbel CPU core.
NextSilicon is a semiconductor and high-performance computing company founded in 2017 and headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. It develops what it calls Intelligent Compute Architecture (ICA), an approach that combines adaptive computing with self-optimizing software-hardware integration to produce software-defined hardware accelerators and processors. The company argues that this lets hardware adapt to workloads in real time, without code rewrites or vendor lock-in. Its areas of work span high-performance computing, dataflow acceleration, RISC-V processor design and semiconductor design.
The product line includes Maverick-2, described as the first production dataflow accelerator to adapt dynamically to workloads in real time. NextSilicon reports performance of up to 10x that of leading GPUs while consuming less than half the power. Arbel is an enterprise-grade RISC-V CPU core built on TSMC technology and positioned against products from Intel and AMD. Target sectors include scientific research, supercomputing, web search, social-media analysis, financial modelling and enterprise computing.
NextSilicon has raised more than $300m, at Series C stage, from investors including Amiti, Aleph, Liberty Technology VC, Playground Global, Standard Investments, StepStone and Third Point Ventures. The company employs over 350 people globally, with operations distributed across multiple locations. Its hardware has been deployed at Sandia National Laboratories as part of the Vanguard supercomputer programme.
