The market for the pre-built design blocks inside chips grew 12.7 percent last year to $9.45B, according to the latest SemiWiki Design IP Report, with royalties climbing faster than upfront licensing fees.
Royalties, which accumulate once chips ship in volume, grew 16.1 percent in 2025 against 10.7 percent for licensing, evidence that design wins locked in years ago have finally reached mass production.
Processor blocks take the largest slice of that spending at 52.2 percent, with wired interface IP second, and the two categories absorb 69 percent of the market. Arm grew its design IP business 26.4 percent last year, extending a lead it has held for years.
The licensor now books 49.4 percent of all design IP revenue, and roughly nine of every ten dollars spent on CPU IP land with it. The report frames that footprint as a double-edged sword: its AGI silicon program turns the industry’s largest licensor into a rival of the chipmakers it supplies, and the report argues the tension is steering more design teams toward RISC-V.
