RISC-V CTO Mark Himelstein has announced he is leaving the organization to return to his consulting practice, effective May 2.

RISC-V is the open, royalty-free alternative to Arm. Like Arm, RISC-V develops a set of processor specifications that companies, organizations, and individuals are free to use to build their own semiconductors. Himelstein has been the organization’s CTO for the last four years, playing a pivotal role in its growth and development.

CEO Calista Redmond announced the news in a blog post, thanking Himelstein for his “leadership and contributions” during his time with the organization.

“We appreciate the leadership and contributions that Mark has given to RISC-V and will miss having him in the core team,” wrote Redmond. “During his tenure, the RISC-V technical community has grown to nearly 15,000 engineers and business leaders around the world, collaborating in more than 70 different work groups and committees, progressing and ratifying standards that the world will depend on for generations of computing to come. We have much to celebrate in our accomplishments together, including more than 40 ratified specifications in the past two years alone.”

Himelstein made it clear that he is leaving to return to his own business, confident in RISC-V’s position and future.

When I joined RISC-V on June 1, 2020, I committed myself to three years and I am now at nearly four years and it is time for me to return to my consulting practice.

I am very proud of the work we have achieved together at RISC-V including over 40 ratified specifications, created profiles for application portability between RISC-V implementations, growing the technical organization from 15 to over 70 groups, recruiting incredible member leaders, and leaving an amazing roadmap including matrix operations, trusted execution, control flow integrity, overall security model, server platform specification, and more.

I look forward to seeing the continued success for RISC-V in the future. I will always be proud of my work at RISC-V.

Redmond concluded by saying the company is now looking for a replacement VP of Technology and welcomes applicants.