Codasip has announced a pivot toward cyber-resilient semiconductor architectures, paired with the divestiture of its low-end RISC-V processor design business, to an unnamed public US semiconductor company. The buyer will also take a broad license to Codasip Studio, with closing expected in about a month. The remaining company will concentrate on CHERI-based processors, SoCs, and FPGA platforms, extending a security-first push Codasip had already been building through its CHERI work and prior commercial agreements.
(Source: Codasip)
Codasip said on April 8 that it is reshaping the business around “cyber-resilient semiconductor architectures,” while selling its low-end RISC-V processor design operation to an unnamed public US chip company. As part of the deal, the acquirer will also receive a broad license to Codasip Studio, the company’s processor customization and design environment. The transaction is expected to close within a month.
The new plan leaves Codasip focused on CHERI-based processor IP and on building a broader portfolio of CHERI SoCs and CHERI FPGA offerings. That direction is not entirely new: Codasip had already been leaning hard into CHERI, launching its Codasip Prime exploration platform in April 2025 and later signing a CHERI CPU licensing deal with EnSilica for a quantum-resilient device.
CEO Ron Black framed the shift as a response to mounting cyber risk and the inadequacy of bolt-on security. That argument aligns with the wider CHERI pitch. The UK government’s CHERI adoption work describes the architecture as a “security by design” approach aimed at memory safety and compartmentalization, while Codasip itself has previously positioned CHERI as a way to tackle the memory safety flaws behind a large share of vulnerabilities.
What do we think?
Back in July 2025, Codasip formally launched an expedited sale process and said the board would consider offers for the whole company or for portions of it. This does not look like the successful culmination of that sales process.
Today’s announcement strongly suggests the all-up sale did not happen on acceptable terms, and that management has found a buyer for one portion of the business and is trying to carve out a sharper identity for what remains.
Low-end RISC-V CPU IP is crowded, margins are thin, and differentiation is hard to sustain unless you have unusual scale, foundry leverage, or a very sticky software ecosystem. Selling that part of its IP business may buy Codasip time.
CHERI is a niche bet. Yes, CHERI is a serious technology. It has credible backing from the UK government, DARPA-linked security research, and more recent interest from Google’s Coral team. However, it has also lost major early backer Arm, which could find no commercial argument for it. The ecosystem is still early, most implementations remain pre-market or prototyping-led, and broad adoption requires hardware, toolchain, OS, and software migration to move together.
That leaves the obvious question: Does Codasip already have a customer, or at least a program path, that justifies the pivot? Or is this an attempt to occupy a category where there is political support and no direct competition.
Our immediate read is this: Codasip has not solved its commercial problem; it has redefined it.
Codasip declined further comment.
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