Arm bought Artisan in 2004 for around $900 million to help make Arm’s processor IP more accessible to IC designers and foundries.
The deal with Cadence includes a licensing agreement, so Arm is presumably retaining ownership of some parts of the Artisan IP portfolio.
It is thought that, possibly because of its refocusing on proprietary IC development, Arn is looking to off-load the cost of maintaining the Artisan portfolio
The transaction will augment Cadence’s expanding design IP offerings, anchored by a leading portfolio of protocol and interface IP, mem interface IP, SerDes IP at the most advanced nodes, and embedded security IP from the pending Secure-IC acquisition.
“With the addition of the Artisan IP business and team, Cadence will enter the foundation IP market, enabling us to capitalize on new growth opportunities,” says Cadence svp Boyd Phelps, “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,” says Arm evp Kevork Kechichian, “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.”
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