{
 "id": "1.03",
 "slug": "asic-design-services-ip-and-eda",
 "url": "/parts/compute-silicon-and-packaging/asic-design-services-ip-and-eda",
 "name": "ASIC design services, IP & EDA",
 "qualifiers": null,
 "layer": {
  "id": 1,
  "name": "Compute silicon & packaging"
 },
 "parent_id": null,
 "children": [],
 "summary": "Outside firms and licensors — design-services houses, IP blocks, and EDA software — that hyperscalers and accelerator startups use to turn a chip specification into a manufacturable design.",
 "description_md": "This category sits behind every custom accelerator in the catalog rather than in front of the end customer: it supplies the design implementation, SerDes and CPU IP blocks, and the EDA software used to turn a hyperscaler's or startup's chip specification (see Hyperscaler custom ASICs and Startup accelerators) into something a foundry can actually fab. It doesn't touch the finished silicon directly, but almost no announced AI chip program — merchant or custom — ships without touching at least one firm in this group.\nThe investor angle is toll-road exposure: revenue here tracks the number of active design programs and IP licensing renewals rather than chip unit volumes, so it can grow even in a generation where accelerator shipments are constrained elsewhere in the chain (foundry or packaging). Concentration is high in a few sub-segments — a small number of firms dominate EDA software and CPU core licensing — which gives those positions unusual pricing power relative to the fragmented design-services side, where competition among design houses for the same customer program is more common.",
 "ai_delta": "Every hyperscaler and well-funded AI startup now wants its own accelerator design, which has pulled design-services, IP licensing, and EDA demand up well beyond what general-purpose chip design alone would generate.",
 "bottleneck_status": null,
 "scale_tiers": [
  "enterprise",
  "hyperscale_building",
  "ai_campus",
  "gw_class"
 ],
 "density_modes": [
  "any"
 ],
 "scale_notes": "Not tied to any single facility; revenue tracks the number of active chip design programs across the industry rather than deployed unit count at any one site.",
 "flow": [
  "compute"
 ],
 "companies": [
  {
   "company_id": "alchip",
   "name": "Alchip",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "public",
   "ticker": "3661.TW",
   "product_note": null,
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "company_id": "arm",
   "name": "Arm",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "public",
   "ticker": "ARM",
   "product_note": "CPU IP",
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "company_id": "broadcom",
   "name": "Broadcom",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "public",
   "ticker": "AVGO",
   "product_note": null,
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "company_id": "cadence",
   "name": "Cadence",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "public",
   "ticker": "CDNS",
   "product_note": "EDA and IP",
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "company_id": "credo",
   "name": "Credo",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "public",
   "ticker": "CRDO",
   "product_note": "SerDes IP",
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "company_id": "faraday",
   "name": "Faraday",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "public",
   "ticker": "3035.TW",
   "product_note": null,
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "company_id": "global-unichip",
   "name": "Global Unichip",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "public",
   "ticker": "3443.TW",
   "product_note": null,
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "company_id": "marvell",
   "name": "Marvell",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "public",
   "ticker": "MRVL",
   "product_note": null,
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "company_id": "mediatek",
   "name": "MediaTek",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "public",
   "ticker": "2454.TW",
   "product_note": null,
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "company_id": "rambus",
   "name": "Rambus",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "public",
   "ticker": "RMBS",
   "product_note": null,
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "company_id": "socionext",
   "name": "Socionext",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "public",
   "ticker": "6526.T",
   "product_note": null,
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "company_id": "synopsys",
   "name": "Synopsys",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "public",
   "ticker": "SNPS",
   "product_note": null,
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "company_id": "alphawave",
   "name": "Alphawave",
   "role": "service",
   "confidence": "inferred",
   "ownership_type": "unknown",
   "ticker": null,
   "product_note": null,
   "note": null,
   "source_url": null
  }
 ]
}