Cadence Design Systems Inc. has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge and pay a total of about $140 million to resolve U.S. allegations that it illegally supplied chip-design hardware and software to China’s National University of Defense Technology, the Justice Department said on Monday. Prosecutors allege that from 2015 to 2020 the San Jose-based company and its subsidiary Cadence China shipped electronic design automation tools at least 56 times to Central South CAD Center, an alias for the black-listed university, and later transferred the technology to Phytium Technology Co., all without the export licenses routinely denied for military-linked end users. NUDT has been on the Commerce Department’s Entity List since 2015 over concerns its supercomputers aid nuclear-explosion simulations. Under the plea agreement, Cadence will be on probation for three years, undertake additional compliance audits and refrain from further violations. The $140 million settlement—covering a criminal fine, forfeiture and a Commerce Department civil penalty—follows subpoenas the company received in 2021 and 2023 as part of a multi-agency probe that began more than four years ago. Cadence, which derived 12 percent of its 2024 revenue from China, recorded the charge in its latest quarterly results; its shares rose about 6.5 percent after releasing the settlement and stronger-than-expected earnings. The case underscores Washington’s continued enforcement of export-control rules even as broader U.S.–China trade talks resume.