Asian Tech Press (Mar. 15) -- Chip designer Arm Ltd., owned by Japan's SoftBank Group, is said to cut up to 10% of its workforce in preparation for an IPO.

The British company will lay off 12% to 15% of its employees in the United Kingdom and the United States, CEO Rene Haas said in an internal memo, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The high end of that range would involve nearly 1,000 jobs, but most of the cuts won't affect engineers, the person said.

In early February, U.S. chipmaker Nvidia Corp.'s $66 billion buyout of Arm was terminated because of "significant regulatory challenges preventing the consummation of the transaction."

At that time, SoftBank announced it had begun preparations for a public offering of Arm within the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023.