Silvaco buys IPextreme as ticket to IP arena

Article By : Silvaco

Silvaco aims to allow semiconductor companies and IP development companies to monetise their captive IP assets and bring high quality, production-proven IP to the global semiconductor market.

Silvaco has acquired IPextreme, a company focused on semiconductor IP commercialisation and IP management, as its initial push to step into the IP market. The new IP division will be led by IPextreme founder and CEO Warren Savage. Silvaco made the move to allow large semiconductor companies and small to midsize IP development companies to monetise their captive IP assets and bring high quality, production-proven IP to the global semiconductor market, the company stated.

According to researcher MarketsandMarkets, the semiconductor IP market is forecasted to expand at greater than 10% CAGR between 2016 and 2021. Driving factors for this growth include increasing demand for advanced SoCs in the consumer and automotive sectors, emergent IoT ecosystem, and related increased investor and government funding. However, to date the IP market has been predominately served by providers who engineer and market their own IP, or form the expertise to do so by way of acquisition. Only a small portion of the IP created through billions of dollars of R&D expenditures by semiconductor companies have been made commercially available.

__Figure 1:__ *Dutton, Savage sign Silvaco-IPextreme acquisition agreement *

IPextreme innovated with a unique IP management system and infrastructure for semiconductor makers to unlock their IP assets and deliver captive IP to the market. Founded in 2004, IPextreme has worked with leading semiconductor companies in the world, including Freescale, Infineon, NXP Semiconductors, National Semiconductor and Texas Instruments. By bringing its worldwide resources and additional investment to the division, Silvaco will accelerate this potent source of proven technology reaching the market.

The acquisition also brings IPextreme’s patent-pending IP fingerprinting and chip-level DNA analysis software to Silvaco. These products enable semiconductor companies to insure they are compliant with contractual IP obligations, and IP providers to protect their assets.