Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The acquisition, which ARC predicts will have a £350k impact on its operations this year, saw the firm take on 15 key members of Tenison’s team, including Dr David Greaves, who will assume the role of CTO.

The development will allow ARC’s customers to simulate virtually all logic on any ARC-based chip, including those using external technologies such as customer-developed IP and that from other suppliers like ARM Holdings.

ARC’s CEO, Carl Schlachte said: “SoCs for consumer applications are increasingly dominated by chips incorporating multiple processors along with IP from multiple sources.

“To address the design challenges of customers using these technologies, ARC now will provide its own software tools along with Tenison’s technology, enabling customers to create power-efficient, high performance, and low cost SoCs.”

Tenison was spun-out from Cambridge University in 1999; its advanced modeling, simulation, and verification products help chip designers accurately predict critical metrics of an SoC before the design is sent for manufacture, speeding chip development and shortening time to market.

It reported a £1.4m net loss for last year and had gross assets of £275k as of May 31.

ARC said it was unable to comment further on the new facility regarding location, size or staff numbers.

ARC’s broad product portfolio of higly configurable microprocessors is used by close to 140 customers – including Broadcom, Freescale, and Renesas – that collectively ship approximately 200m ARC-based chips every year, in applications ranging from wireless computing and digital set-top boxes to government satellites.

The firm employs around 130 people in research and development, sales and marketing offices across North America, Europe and Asia.