Semiconductor IP company Arteris is expanding its longstanding partnership with Arm Holdings to provide advanced hardware security verification across a broader range of Arm’s CPU portfolio.
With so many technologies, the development cycle is focused on getting it running, making it run faster and then securing it, in that order. Security has a tendency to be an afterthought to performance. This deal makes security a part of the development process rather than a function performed after the chip is finished.
Arm will deploy Arteris’ Cycuity Radix hardware security assurance technology across additional next-generation processor programs. The expanded agreement builds on five years of collaboration between the companies and is intended to help identify security vulnerabilities earlier in the chip design process, before silicon reaches manufacturing.
Cycuity Radix analyzes hardware designs to uncover security weaknesses and unintended interactions that could create attack paths in system-on-chip (SoC) architectures. The software provides engineers with visibility into security-critical relationships within processor designs, allowing vulnerabilities to be addressed during development rather than after chips have been produced.
The announcement reflects a growing shift within the semiconductor industry toward “security-by-design,” particularly as AI accelerators, cloud processors and automotive chips become more interconnected and attractive targets for increasingly sophisticated attacks.
Hardware vulnerabilities are a significant issue because flaws embedded in silicon are often far more difficult, if not impossible, to fix after fabrication. As chip vendors build more and more complex SoCs containing billions of transistors and reusable intellectual property blocks, the greater the chance of security flaws being introduced into the design.
Arteris said Arm is expanding the deployment of its automation and reusable security properties across multiple forthcoming CPU programs, allowing verification work to scale while reducing the time needed to identify potential vulnerabilities.
The partnership marks Arteris’ push into semiconductor cybersecurity following its acquisition of Cycuity in January of this year. The acquisition broadened the company’s portfolio beyond its traditional network-on-chip interconnect technology into hardware security assurance, positioning it to capitalize on growing demand for secure chip design tools.
Arteris is best known for its FlexNoC Network-on-Chip (NoC) interconnect intellectual property (IP) and system-on-chip (SoC) integration automation software. Their technology acts as the digital “highway system” inside complex semiconductors, allowing different processors and components to communicate efficiently and move data at high speeds.
