Apple sues processor startup for theft of trade secrets

By Peter Clarke, eeNewsAnalog (May 4, 2022)

Apple has filed a law suit against high-performance RISC-V processor startup Rivos Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.) and two individuals alleging theft of trade secrets and breach of contract.

Rivos is a processor developer with impressive credentials in terms of its founding team and early recruitment. (see RISC-V startup recruits former Agile Analog CEO Ramsdale).

The company was founded in May 2021 by Puneet Kumar (CEO) and Mark Hayter (chief scientific officer), two executives who have been with multiple previous processor design startups sold to Apple and Google. Rivos then hired dozens of Apple engineers in a “coordinated campaign” in June 2021 Apple states. Some of those employees took proprietary and secret information about Apple system-on-chip designs including the M1 laptop and A15 mobile phone processors, Apple alleges.

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