ARM makes fundamental shift with Artisan sale
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ARM is selling off its Artisan foundation IP business, including its engineering team, in a fundamental shift.
The designer of processor cores has always maintained that it needs to control the underlying physical IP to provide the best performance for its chip designs. It bought Artisan back in 2004 for a whopping $913m. The Artisan foundation IP business consists of standard cell libraries, memory compilers, and general-purpose I/Os (GPIOs) optimized for advanced process nodes at the leading foundries.
The sale to Cadence Design Systems will help Cadence compete with Synopsys in the IP business, especially in chiplets. However the deal is positioning ARM for a shift towards making its own chips. Controlling the foundational IP that other partners rely on would increase the conflict of interests in licensing deals.
Cadence has been expanding its design IP offerings, anchored by a leading portfolio of protocol and interface IP, memory interface IP, SerDes IP at the most advanced nodes, and embedded security IP from the pending Secure-IC acquisition. The deal is described as immaterial to the Cadence revenue and earnings, so it looks like the deal is more about the strategic positing of ARM, where parent company Softbank is in the process of acquiring ARM-based datacentre chip designer Ampere for $6.5bn.
The Artisan acquisition increases the Cadence footprint in SoC designs an asset purchase agreement with a concurrent technology license agreement. As part of the transaction, Cadence will acquire a highly talented and experienced engineering team that is well respected in the industry and can help accelerate development of both related and new IP products.
“During its 25-year history, Arm’s Artisan IP has established a strong presence and reputation in the global ecosystem of foundries and SoC partners. With the expected addition of the Artisan IP business and team, Cadence will enter the foundation IP market, enabling us to capitalize on new growth opportunities,” said Boyd Phelps, senior vice president and general manager of the Silicon Solutions Group at Cadence.
“In doing so, we will gain key technology and expertise to augment our design services and chiplet offerings, enabling us to deliver on our comprehensive IP strategy and provide greater value to our customers. By leveraging the full Cadence stack of IP, libraries, tools, and services, we strive to improve PPA while growing this foundation IP business.”
“We are committed to ensuring that the foundational physical IP needed to deploy ARM technology across all markets continues to be available to the ecosystem,” said Kevork Kechichian, executive vice president, Solutions Engineering at ARM. “The Artisan brand is well established and we believe this technology will continue to play a significant role in the semiconductor industry in the future, and that Cadence is an ideal partner to take it forward.”
The transaction is anticipated to close in the third quarter of 2025, subject to receipt of regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
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