Intel providing chip technology to startup led by co-investor of Tan in rare deal

Rosaic's founding team includes veterans from Rivos, according to a source briefed on the matter and the documents. Amit Parikh, the former finance chief at Rivos, signed the incorporation document.

Intel is providing Rosaic access to its Atom technology, the building blocks of central processors, which run on the company's x86 architecture, the source said.

Providing access to Rosaic is a rare move by Intel, which has historically not widely licensed pieces of its x86 architecture or provided Atom tech. Intel's Atom technology is designed to operate with modest energy and generate little heat, good attributes for mobile and edge devices.

Intel aims to ship register-transfer level (RTL) code for the Atom processor tech to the startup, which designers use to describe chip functions, the source said.

Doing so grants a customer comprehensive exposure to Intel's intellectual property and would allow the customer to build their own custom design, according to a veteran chip executive.