In a surprising development, Cadence and Rambus entered into a definitive agreement late last week for Cadence to acquire the memory physical interface IP and SerDes business from Rambus. As a result, Cadence has a comprehensive portfolio of memory PHY IPs and an established customer base. Meanwhile, the sale of the PHY and SerDes assets will allow Rambus to focus solely on licensing digital IP.
Historically, Rambus developed memory technologies such as RDRAM and XDR DRAM. At some point, the company patented the underlying technology that enabled his SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, and their successors. This made it possible to sue virtually all memory manufacturers and memory controller designers (including AMD and Nvidia) and force them to pay license fees.
Over time, the company began licensing memory controllers and PHYs. It has become a one-stop-shop for chip developers requiring turnkey memory, PCIe, or MIPI solutions for their designs. Now you can access Rambus and get one of the industry’s best memory controllers and silicon-proven interfaces. However, Rambus plans to keep the memory and interface controllers and everything logic related, but intends to dispose of the PHY and SerDes IP assets and sell them to Cadence.
Getting silicon-proven PHY and SerDes IP assets and clients for Cadence makes perfect sense.
”The acquisition of Rambus PHY IP expands Cadence’s established enterprise IP portfolio, expanding its reach across geographic reach and vertical markets such as the aerospace and defense markets, providing complete subsystem solutions to meet the demands of customers around the world.said Boyd Phelps, Senior Vice President and IP Group General Manager, Cadence.
However, the rationale behind Rambus’ decision to sell its PHY and SerDes businesses is less clear. On the other hand, the memory PHY and SerDes business requires Rambus to invest in expensive tapeouts of the latest nodes, which requires capital and increases risk as Rambus has to compete with larger and more well-funded companies like Cadence and Synopsys. Rambus, on the other hand, can be your one-stop-shop for memory controllers and PHYs, which has its advantages (i.e. Rambus can charge a premium).
Rambus, on the other hand, does not need to keep its physical IP assets up-to-date, allowing it to focus on pure technology licensing and not having to invest in physical IP such as PHYs and SerDes.
”This transaction strengthens our focus on market-leading digital IP and chips and expands our roadmap for new memory solutions that support the continued evolution of the data center and AI.said Sean Fan, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Rambus.
The transaction is expected to have a negligible impact on each company’s earnings this year. Subject to certain closing conditions, the expected completion date is he in the third quarter of 2023.
sauce: Cadence
