Taiwan chip giant TSMC to invest up to $100 million in Arm IPO

TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, said on Tuesday its approved an investment in Arm of up to $100 million when the British semiconductor designer goes public.

Arm's initial public offering is slated for this week in the U.S. with shares being priced between $47 and $51. This would generate nearly $5 billion in fresh funds for the company and value it at over $50 billion.

In its prospectus, Arm said that technology companies including Nvidia, Apple, TSMC and others were interested in purchasing up to $735 million worth of shares in the IPO, though none of the companies had made a decision.

TSMC said it has now approved an investment in Arm of an amount not exceeding $100 million based on its final share price at IPO.

Arm, which is owned by Japanese giant Softbank, has not set its final share price.

However, there appears to be huge demand for the IPO. Bloomberg reported on Monday that the IPO is already oversubscribed by 10 times and that bankers could close the order books for shares on Tuesday, which is earlier than expected. Bloomberg also reported that Arm is considering raising the price range for its IPO.

Arm designs the blueprint or chip architecture upon which 99% of the world's smartphone processors are based on.

TSMC is the world's largest and most advanced chipmaker. The Taiwanese firm manufactures semiconductors for companies from Apple to Nvidia, that are often based on Arm architecture.