Completely separate sector. They develop and manufacture equipment for fabrication of semiconductors, they don't design, manufacture, nor sell semiconductors themselves.
There are 3 types of companies that would.
1) IDM's
2) Fabless
3) Design houses
Design Houses:
These companies focus on the architecture, logic design, and verification of semiconductor chips, often partnering with semiconductor fabrication companies (foundries) for manufacturing. Design houses play a key role in developing the functionality and performance of semiconductor chips before they are fabricated.Some example design house companies in the semiconductor industry include:
These companies develop the IP (such as a memory cells) who then design and package it up into a functional chip that is then on-sold to a Fabless company or an IDM company. 4DS is 'kind of' doing this with its collaboration with Imec, however 4DS keep using phrases like "its all in Tings head", what.. so not documented down anywhere? Fabrication process isn't patented? Anyway, just more of weird things this BOD do and say.
Examples are: Synopsys, Cadence design systems.
Fabless Companies:
Very similar to design houses, however they focus more on the product development and marketing (ie. selling to retailers / consumers). They may either acquire the design from design companies or may incorporate 3) (design) directly into the company doing both aspects of designing the chips and product development. They're called Fabless because they do not fabcricate the semiconductors themselves and outsource to TSMC, Samsung Foundries, Global Foundries, etc. under either contract or collaboration.
Examples are: NVidia (soon to become an IDM), Arm, Qualcomm, etc.
IDM:
Integrated Device Manufacturer are companies that design, manufacture, and sell their own semiconductor chips, as opposed to fabless semiconductor companies that focus on chip design and outsource manufacturing to third-party foundries.
These are companies can do it all and incorporate 2) and 3).
Examples are Samsung, Intel, SK Hynix, etc.
Companies that could possibly acquire the IP is a very long list, most of which people have never heard of.
The number of companies that could acquire the IP for a ridiculous amount of money and still have enough cash left over the finish the R&D, chip design and packaging, product development, fabrication, and marketing which will be a 3+ year journey, you can count on one hand and are already working on alternate or competing solutions to 4DS memory IP. This is why I'm critical of people that keep making outrageous valuations, because they have put minimal thought into the economics of it.
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