SEMIFIVE and Niobium to Build FHE Accelerator
What happened
Custom silicon firm SEMIFIVE has partnered with Niobium to develop a U.S.-targeted accelerator for fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). The chip is designed for privacy-preserving AI, a market expected to grow due to data residency and regulatory pressures.
Why it matters
- The development contract is valued at approximately $6.86 million (KRW 10 billion), with SEMIFIVE providing a full turnkey solution that includes design, packaging, testing, and supply chain management. - The accelerator will be manufactured using Samsung Foundry's 8nm Low Power Ultimate (8LPU) process, a key technical detail indicating a focus on balancing performance with power efficiency for datacenter and AI workloads. - South Korea-based SEMIFIVE was founded in 2019 and has raised a total of $147 million, establishing itself as a key design partner in the Samsung Foundry ecosystem and a specialist in custom System-on-Chip (SoC) platforms. - Niobium Microsystems, a U.S.-based startup founded in 2021, spun out of cryptography and formal methods R&D firm Galois with a focus on commercializing FHE hardware for Zero Trust computing environments. - The market for fully homomorphic encryption is forecast to expand significantly, with various analyst projections estimating it will grow to between $500 million and $1 billion by the early 2030s. - Hardware acceleration is essential for FHE's commercial viability, as software-based FHE can be four to five orders of magnitude slower than computation on unencrypted data, making it impractical for most real-world AI applications. - This collaboration taps into the broader custom silicon market, which is projected to reach nearly $43.4 billion by 2030, driven by companies seeking performance gains, power efficiency, and intellectual property protection not available from off-the-shelf chips. [16
Key numbers
- - The development contract is valued at approximately $6.86 million (KRW 10 billion), with SEMIFIVE providing a full turnkey solution that includes design, packaging, testing, and supply chain management.
- The accelerator will be manufactured using Samsung Foundry's 8nm Low Power Ultimate (8LPU) process, a key technical detail indicating a focus on balancing performance with power efficiency for datacenter and AI workloads.
- South Korea-based SEMIFIVE was founded in 2019 and has raised a total of $147 million, establishing itself as a key design partner in the Samsung Foundry ecosystem and a specialist in custom System-on-Chip (SoC) platforms.
- Niobium Microsystems, a U.S.-based startup founded in 2021, spun out of cryptography and formal methods R&D firm Galois with a focus on commercializing FHE hardware for Zero Trust computing environments.
What happens next
- The accelerator will be manufactured using Samsung Foundry's 8nm Low Power Ultimate (8LPU) process, a key technical detail indicating a focus on balancing performance with power efficiency for datacenter and AI workloads.
- The market for fully homomorphic encryption is forecast to expand significantly, with various analyst projections estimating it will grow to between $500 million and $1 billion by the early 2030s.
- The chip is designed for privacy-preserving AI, a market expected to grow due to data residency and regulatory pressures.
Quick answers
What happened in SEMIFIVE and Niobium to Build FHE Accelerator?
Custom silicon firm SEMIFIVE has partnered with Niobium to develop a U.S.-targeted accelerator for fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). The chip is designed for privacy-preserving AI, a market expected to grow due to data residency and regulatory pressures.
Why does SEMIFIVE and Niobium to Build FHE Accelerator matter?
The development contract is valued at approximately $6.86 million (KRW 10 billion), with SEMIFIVE providing a full turnkey solution that includes design, packaging, testing, and supply chain management. The accelerator will be manufactured using Samsung Foundry's 8nm Low Power Ultimate (8LPU) process, a key technical detail indicating a focus on balancing performance with power efficiency for datacenter and AI workloads. South Korea-based SEMIFIVE was founded in 2019 and has raised a total of $147 million, establishing itself as a key design partner in the Samsung Foundry ecosystem and a specialist in custom System-on-Chip (SoC) platforms. Niobium Microsystems, a U.S.-based startup founded in 2021, spun out of cryptography and formal methods R&D firm Galois with a focus on commercializing FHE hardware for Zero Trust computing environments. The market for fully homomorphic encryption is forecast to expand significantly, with various analyst projections estimating it will grow to between $500 million and $1 billion by the early 2030s. Hardware acceleration is essential for FHE's commercial viability, as software-based FHE can be four to five orders of magnitude slower than computation on unencrypted data, making it impractical for most real-world AI applications. This collaboration taps into the broader custom silicon market, which is projected to reach nearly $43.4 billion by 2030, driven by companies seeking performance gains, power efficiency, and intellectual property protection not available from off-the-shelf chips. [16
