PETALING JAYA: Integrated circuit (IC) design firm SkyeChip Bhd has signed a retail underwriting agreement with Maybank Investment Bank Bhd and CIMB Investment Bank Bhd for its upcoming initial public offering (IPO) on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia.
The Penang-based firm, which commenced its IC design operations in 2020, plans to use about 60% of the IPO proceeds for the research and development of IC products and silicon intellectual property (IP).
The IPO comprises a public issue of 400 million new ordinary shares in SkyeChip, representing 22.3% of its enlarged issued share capital.
Notably, there is no offer for sale of existing shares by the current shareholders.
Of the 400 million shares, about 66.2% will be allocated for the institutional offering, particularly to cornerstone, institutional and selected investors.
The remaining shares are for the retail offering.
In a statement yesterday, SkyeChip said that since 2020, it has designed and developed a portfolio of proprietary silicon IPs, including memory interface IPs, Network-on-Chip IPs and die-to-die interface IPs, as well as custom application-specific integrated circuits (Asic) for applications such as artificial intelligence (AI) inference.
The company has filed more than 100 patent applications across Malaysia, China and the United States.
SkyeChip executive director and chief executive officer Datuk Fong Swee Kiang said: “Looking ahead, the IPO proceeds will allow us to further advance our silicon IPs and custom Asic development in applications such as AI, high-performance computing and autonomous vehicles as we work towards strengthening SkyeChip’s presence as a global IC design company.”
In the IC space, SkyeChip aims to focus on custom compute and AI silicon products. Regarding silicon IPs, the group will enhance its proprietary silicon IP portfolio through the development of next-generation memory interface IPs, while expanding into the automotive IP segment.
Approximately 16% of the IPO proceeds will be directed towards the expansion of the company’s computing infrastructure and operational facilities to support growing engineering operations.
Moreover, approximately 10% will be deployed for the subscription and licensing of electronic design automation and development software tools essential to the group’s IC design operations.
The remainder will be used for working capital requirements and to defray fees and expenses incurred in connection with the IPO.
