# ASIC design services, IP & EDA

Part ID: 1.03 · Layer 1 (Compute silicon & packaging)

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.

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.
The 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.

## Companies

| Company | Role | Confidence | Ownership | Ticker | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alchip | service | inferred | public | 3661.TW |  |
| Arm | service | inferred | public | ARM | CPU IP |
| Broadcom | service | inferred | public | AVGO |  |
| Cadence | service | inferred | public | CDNS | EDA and IP |
| Credo | service | inferred | public | CRDO | SerDes IP |
| Faraday | service | inferred | public | 3035.TW |  |
| Global Unichip | service | inferred | public | 3443.TW |  |
| Marvell | service | inferred | public | MRVL |  |
| MediaTek | service | inferred | public | 2454.TW |  |
| Rambus | service | inferred | public | RMBS |  |
| Socionext | service | inferred | public | 6526.T |  |
| Synopsys | service | inferred | public | SNPS |  |
| Alphawave | service | inferred | unknown |  |  |

Confidence tags: disclosed = company/filing statement; reported = trade press or partner list; inferred = taxonomy lead.