Synopsys, Amazon Web Services sign chip design licensing deal worth more than $1 billion

San Francisco, September 30 - Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Synopsys have announced a multi-year deal valued at over $1 billion, in which AWS will license chip design intellectual property from Synopsys. Synopsys specializes in software for designing intricate computer chips, assisting companies like Nvidia and Intel in determining the layout of transistors on silicon chips.

The company has also increasingly engaged in licensing blueprints for chip components, a sector that generated $1.75 billion in revenue during the previous fiscal year. Synopsys competes with Arm Holdings in this space. The early focus of Synopsys' design licensing business was on common chip parts, where customers found it more economical to license blueprints rather than design them.

However, Synopsys has since expanded into more complex designs, such as computing cores, and the new agreement will concentrate on blueprints tailored to specific chip types. AWS develops various chips, including the Graviton central processors and the Trainium AI chips. The specifics of which AWS chips will utilize Synopsys' blueprints are yet to be determined.

Under the agreement, Synopsys will also integrate AWS computing and storage services, along with Amazon Bedrock, to develop and deploy AI applications.