StarFive targets BMC chips for AI data centers

Shanghai StarFive Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. is moving into the BMC chip market with its JH-B100 series, positioning RISC-V silicon for AI data center server management. Zhao Jing, vice president of marketing and operations, said BMC chip shipments are expected to grow 56% year-over-year in 2026, approaching 30 million units, and surpass 50 million units by 2028. Nvidia’s GB200 rack requires 71 BMC chips per cabinet, highlighting rising demand for granular management across AI computing clusters.

The company is targeting a market where two Taiwanese vendors together hold nearly 90% share. Its JH-B100S was released in late 2025 with a proprietary RISC-V quad-core CPU, boot-to-BootLoader time of under 8 seconds, DDR4/DDR5 support and PCIe Gen4. The dual-node JH-B100D is scheduled for Q3 2026, while the planned JH-B100N is designed to use AI large language models to analyze fan noise and operating data for earlier fault detection.

StarFive is also emphasizing ecosystem access, including entry into Intel’s ecosystem wall and a showcase alongside AMI at the 2026 Open Compute Technology Conference. The company is contributing Intel CPU-specific recipes to OpenBMC, while offering evaluation boards, RunBMC plug-in cards, QEMU simulation tools and design support to lower migration costs and shorten development cycles.