Cadence announced today that it has reached a definitive agreement with Arm to acquire Arm's Artisan foundation IP business. The business includes standard cell libraries, memory compilers, and general-purpose I/O (GPIO) optimized for advanced process nodes of leading foundries. This transaction will enhance Cadence's expanding design IP product line, whose core products include leading protocol and interface IP, memory interface IP, SerDes IP for the most advanced nodes, and embedded security IP from the upcoming acquisition of Secure-IC.

By expanding its presence in SoC design, Cadence is reinforcing its commitment to continue accelerating customer time to market and optimizing cost, power and performance on the world's leading foundry processes. Cadence will acquire the Arm Artisan foundation IP business through an asset purchase agreement that will also include a technology license agreement, which will be signed upon closing and is subject to any existing rights. As part of the transaction, Cadence will gain a talented and experienced engineering team that is well-known in the industry to help accelerate the development of related and new IP products.

Said by Boyd Phelps

Boyd Phelps, senior vice president and general manager of the Silicon Solutions Division at Cadence, said: "Arm's Artisan IP has a 25-year history and has established a strong presence and good reputation in the global foundry and SoC partner ecosystem. With the addition of the Artisan IP business and team, Cadence will enter the basic IP market to seize new growth opportunities. Through the acquisition, we will gain key technologies and expertise to enhance our design services and chiplet products, enabling us to implement a comprehensive IP strategy and provide greater value to customers. By leveraging Cadence's complete IP, library, tool and service stack, we are committed to increasing PPA while growing our basic IP business." From Arm's official website, we can see that Arm Artisan physical IP components are used to design and manufacture complex system-on-chip (SoC) integrated circuits (ICs). The Artisan physical IP platform includes logic IP and supporting architecture products, embedded memory compilers, and interface IP.

About Artisan's products

Artisan's products are optimized for performance, density, power consumption and yield, and are optimized for various foundries and process technologies from 250nm to 3nm. Combined with POP IP and architect products, Arm Artisan physical IP can simplify implementation, meet the challenges of advanced nodes, accelerate core enhancement, speed up SoC implementation, and reduce project risks for IC design.

Arm said that by working with leading foundries and EDA manufacturers including GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Samsung, TSMC and UMC, they have optimized their technology on 250nm to 3nm process nodes so that partners can quickly and easily bring products to market.

"We are committed to ensuring that the foundational physical IP required to deploy Arm technology in all markets continues to be available to the entire ecosystem," said Kevork Kechichian, executive vice president of solutions engineering at Arm. "The Artisan brand is well established, and we believe this technology will continue to play an important role in the semiconductor industry in the future, and Cadence is the ideal partner to drive its development."

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2025, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. The acquisition is expected to have a neutral impact on current-year revenue and earnings.

Reference link https://www.design-reuse.com/news/57700/cadence-arm-artisan-acquisition.html

Source: Content compiled from cadence

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