Facebook has acquired Sonics, a Silicon Valley IP provider that specializes in on-chip network and power-management technologies.

Neither Facebook nor Sonics has publicly announced the deal. A posting on Sonics's website entitled “Our Next Chapter."

"Today, we're excited to announce that we are moving on as a team. As part of this opportunity, we will be winding down our business."

Currently, key Sonics executive members are working for Facebook. Sonic’s co-founder and CTO Drew Wingard has become director of Silicon methodology at Facebook, according to his LinkedIn page. Scott Evans, Sonics’ director of software, is now a CAD and methodology engineer at Facebook. And George Spatz, Sonics’ director of engineering, lists Facebook as his new employer.

Sonics’ customers confirmed the deal in conversations with Arteris, a leading interconnect IP vendor and Sonics competitor. The Sonics deal with Facebook leaves Arteris as the only supplier of advanced network-on-a-chip IP, desides Arm.

Big companies like Apple and platform vendors such as Google and Facebook are designing in earnest their own SoCs for captive use.

SoC designers need interconnect IP, because it’s increasingly difficult to connect all the complex functional blocks in an SoC.

Tha acqisition indicates that Facebook is working on its own multicore, and probably heterogeneous, processor. Facebook is already using it sown ASICs for its data centers, but they also may develop chips for Oculus VR headsets.