The design house (DSP) industry, which has handled outsourced semiconductor design, is expanding in both contract pricing and the scale of fundraising. The backdrop is a structural shift in which mass production of AI chips has become difficult with the foundry stage alone after 2-nanometre nodes. As line-width shrink approaches physical limits, 2.5D and 3D stacking and chiplets have emerged as key to performance competition, and advanced packaging and interconnect technologies have become a new battleground.

As integrated design capabilities that bundle design intellectual property (IP), libraries and electronic design automation (EDA) tools become a variable that determines chip performance, the DSP industry formula is shifting from simple outsourcing to an "AI infrastructure architecture partner." ADTechnology is seeking to take the lead as an "AI infrastructure architecture company" by highlighting cooperation with global big tech, mass-production experience at both Samsung Foundry and TSMC, and solutions based on its own platform. The company's earnings rebound aligns with this strategic shift.

According to the company's business report, standalone 2025 revenue was 124.4 billion won, up 75 percent from 71.0 billion won a year earlier. Operating profit was 8.8 billion won, swinging to a profit after operating losses of 8.1 billion won and 15.8 billion won over the previous 2 years. The company has laid out a plan to raise the share of orders for high value-added projects such as AI, high-performance computing (HPC) and automotive to 73 percent in 2025 and 83 percent in 2026 from 26 percent in 2024, and profitability in its core business has emerged first. The share of cutting-edge processes below 5 nanometres is also expected to increase to 80 percent in 2026 from 70 percent in 2025, while the share of turnkey projects rises to 81 percent from 60% over the same period.

Its own platform is the foundation for a step-up in scale. ADTechnology's IP platform, Capella, is a concept similar to POP (Processor Optimization Packages) from British IP company Arm. Just as POP acts as a bridge between Arm IP and the silicon process to boost performance within a given power range while reducing the risk of voltage drop, Capella also provides an IP-process optimisation layer.

The next-generation platform ADT 620 is based on Arm Neoverse V3 and targets processes of 2 nanometres or below, with Arm and Samsung Foundry participating in joint development. Total development costs are more than 230.0 billion won, according to company materials. It adopts a 2.5D chiplet approach to meet demand for data centre server chips. Being the first in the South Korean semiconductor industry to sign an Arm Total Design partnership is also a factor raising expectations for data centre and server chip orders.

SemiFive's successive orders show that this rise in pricing is spreading across the industry. The company said the latest 4-nanometre NPU turnkey contract is worth about 18.0 billion won ($12.5 million) and aims to commercialise an on-premises AI NPU based on Samsung Electronics' 4-nanometre (SF4X) process. Earlier, SemiFive won orders in succession, including Excina's CXL-based 4-nanometre development and HyperAccel's 4-nanometre development of a large language model processing unit (LPU). An IP internalisation strategy underpins the expansion in pricing.

Analog Bits, based in Silicon Valley in the United States and acquired by SemiFive, holds more than 12 types of low-power mixed-signal IP, including an integrated LDO (Low Drop-Out regulator) based on TSMC's N2P process and a finless PVT (Process, Voltage, Temperature) sensor. Analog Bits has a track record of mass-producing billions of IP cores from 0.35-micron to 2-nanometre processes. Turnkey big-die projects of more than 800 square metres combined with proprietary IP are leading to higher pricing.

◆ Fundraising scale also jumps a level... Public-private joint investment accelerates

Along with higher contract pricing, inflows of funds into the DSP collaborative ecosystem are also steepening. Rebellions said it completed a 640.0 billion won pre-IPO after being selected on March 31 as the first company for direct investment by the National Growth Fund. Cumulative investment totals 1.3 trillion won and corporate value reaches 3.4 trillion won, according to company materials.

That includes 300.0 billion won in policy funding, combining 250.0 billion won from the National Growth Fund and 50.0 billion won from Korea Development Bank, along with 300.0 billion won in private capital with Mirae Asset Group participating as an anchor investor. Growth of about 10 times in revenue in 2025 compared with 2023 was cited as the basis for the investment decision.

As AI chip competition after 2 nanometres expands across the foundry, IP, packaging and interconnect ecosystem, the intermediary value of DSPs that can solve this through integrated design is being reflected simultaneously in both pricing and fundraising. An industry official said, "Even from a fabless perspective, the mood is to look for a design collaboration partner rather than a simple outsourcing partner," adding, "The DSP industry is improving its fundamentals and expanding its scale in both revenue and operating profit."