IBM and ARM collaboration aims to provide design platform down to 14nm

Focusing on performance and power efficiency, the resulting technology will provide a suite of optimised physical and processor IP by ARM tuned to IBM's advance manufacturing process down to 14nm. According to ARM, this will provide streamlined development and earlier introduction of advanced consumer electronics into the marketplace. The two companies plan to develop esign platforms aligning the manufacturing process, microprocessor and physical IP design teams. Both firms hope the collaboration will minimise the risk and barriers to migrating to smaller geometries while enabling optimised density, performance, power and yield in advanced SoC designs; accelerating the introduction of advanced electronics into the marketplace. "IBM has a proven track record of delivering the core research and development that is relied upon by major semiconductor vendors worldwide for their advanced semiconductor devices," said Simon Segars, pictured, EVP and general manager, ARM physical IP division. "Their leadership of the ISDA alliance, which features a diverse set of top tier companies as members, is growing in importance as consolidation trends in the semiconductor manufacturing industry continue. This agreement will ensure we are able to deliver highly tuned ARM Artisan Physical IP solutions on advanced ISDA process technologies to meet the early time-to-market our customers demand."