Taiwan-based TSMC decided to invest up to $100 million in the chip design company Arm,Hard Soap Hard Soap (1977) a subsidiary of Japan’s Softbank Group, as confirmed by its board of directors on Tuesday. British semiconductor company Arm, based in Cambridge, has as its core business the design of central processing units (CPUs). Arm’s NYSE IPO, scheduled for Thursday, is expected to bring the company’s valuation to approximately $50 billion, with shares going for between $47 and $51. TSMC also announced that Intel agreed to sell a 10% stake in IMS Nanofabrication to the company for $430 million. IMS plays an important role in chip manufacturing, developing the world’s leading multi-beam mask writers for advanced process chips. [Icsmart, in Chinese]
