News Article
ARM and TSMC collaborate on FinFET process technology
A multi-year agreement between the industry heavyweights promises to drive alignment of next-generation processor, physical intellectual property, and process technology for use in high-performance, energy-efficient mobile and enterprise markets
TSMC and ARM have penned a multi-year agreement extending their collaboration beyond 20nm technology to deliver ARM processors on FinFET transistors.
The collaboration will optimise the next generation of 64-bit ARM processors based on the ARMv8 architecture, ARM Artisan physical intellectual property (IP), and TSMC's FinFET process technology for use in mobile and enterprise markets.
The partners will share technical information, which each hopes will enhance the development of ARM IP and TSMC process technology.
The partners will share technical information, which each hopes will enhance the development of ARM IP and TSMC process technology.
ARM intends to optimise the power, performance and area (PPA) of the overall solution to reduce risk and encourage early adoption while TSMC will use the latest ARM processors and technology to benchmark and tune advanced FinFET process technologies.
According to the businesses, the combination of TSMC FinFET technology and ARMv8 architecture provides the fabless industry with solutions for continued innovation across diverse market segments. The collaboration will result in improved silicon process, physical IP and processor technology that together will enable new system-on-chip (SoC) innovation and shorten time-to-market.
"By working closely with TSMC, we are able to quickly ramp volume production of highly integrated SoCs in advanced silicon process technology," says Simon Segars, executive vice president and general manager, Processor and Physical IP Divisions, ARM. "The ongoing deep collaboration with TSMC provides earlier access to FinFET technology to bring high-performance, power-efficient products to market."
"This collaboration brings two industry leaders together earlier than ever before to optimise our FinFET process with ARM's 64-bit processors and physical IP," said Cliff Hou, vice president, TSMC research and development. "We can successfully achieve targets for high speed, low voltage and low leakage."
"By working closely with TSMC, we are able to quickly ramp volume production of highly integrated SoCs in advanced silicon process technology," says Simon Segars, executive vice president and general manager, Processor and Physical IP Divisions, ARM. "The ongoing deep collaboration with TSMC provides earlier access to FinFET technology to bring high-performance, power-efficient products to market."
"This collaboration brings two industry leaders together earlier than ever before to optimise our FinFET process with ARM's 64-bit processors and physical IP," said Cliff Hou, vice president, TSMC research and development. "We can successfully achieve targets for high speed, low voltage and low leakage."
The ARMv8 architecture provides a new energy-efficient 64-bit execution state to meet the performance demands of high-end mobile, enterprise and server applications. The 64-bit architecture has been designed specifically to enable energy-efficient implementations.
Similarly, the 64-bit memory addressing and high-end performance are necessary to enable enterprise computing and network infrastructure that are fundamental for the mobile and cloud-computing markets.
At the same time, TSMC's FinFET process promises impressive speed and power improvements as well as leakage reduction.
At the same time, TSMC's FinFET process promises impressive speed and power improvements as well as leakage reduction.
According to TSMC, these advantages overcome challenges that have become critical barriers to further scaling of advanced SoC technology.
