At the Design Automation Conference (DAC) this morning, five industry leaders announced an agreement to develop a "comprehensive technology enablement solution" for the design and manufacture of mobile Internet-optimized devices.
ARM, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, IBM, Samsung Electronics, and Synopsys have teamed for a complete design-chain collaboration intended to integrate low-power processor architecture, integrated design flow, and system-level IP on the Common Platform foundry process.
Specifically, the partnership is focused on ARM's processor architecture for mobile applications and suite of physical IP (intellectual property); 32-/28-nm low-power/low-leakage, HKMG (high-k metal-gate) synchronized foundry services through the Common Platform manufacturing alliance of IBM, Chartered, and Samsung; and the Synopsys Lynx Design System, including Galaxy Implementation Platform for SOC implementation, as well as DesignWare connectivity IP.
“The Common Platform alliance’s expanded engagement approach with ARM, and now Synopsys, means working more closely together with earlier access to each other’s technology innovations, integrating, and optimizing our capabilities for clients,” said Michael J Cadigan, general manager of IBM microelectronics division, in a statement. “The benefits are clear and differentiated: lower risk, lower cost, and faster time-to-market.”
“The complexity of advanced manufacturing process technology requires a tight connection between the physical IP, processor cores, and EDA methodology,” said Warren East, CEO of ARM, in the statement. “Early collaboration between these leading companies will significantly improve the performance, power, and area achievable by our partners and deliver increased value to the end products.”
The Common Platform 32-/28-nm process uses a HKMG approach to address the limitations of polysilicon technology. As described by the group, it leverages the research and development efforts of the IBM joint technology development alliance to offer a high-performance, low-power manufacturing platform. The process offering is available with synchronized foundry services from all three Common Platform companies.
The five companies noted that the collaborative effort began a year ago and said that initial 32-nm low-power tool and IP enablement has been released with a steady stream of early customer deliverables targeted in the coming months. Supporting physical and processor IP, connectivity IP, process design kits, and tools will be available from their respective suppliers, the group said.
Demonstrations of the technology based on initial test chips will be shown at DAC this week. |
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