New platform gives ARM-based chips a leg up

A group of semiconductor companies including IBM, ARM and Samsung has introduced a custom chip-manufacturing platform for 32- and 28-nanometer products.

The five company-strong consortium said in its announcement on Monday that the platform will give chip designers a path to the latest production technologies without their having to make billion-dollar investments in fabrication plants.

The platform brings together processor and physical intellectual property from ARM; tools, connectivity intellectual property and design flow from Synopsys; and the 32/28nm process from the alliance of IBM, Samsung and Globalfoundries. The process includes high-k metal gate transistors, a technology first introduced into the market by Intel in 2007, which allow the smaller geometries to run faster and at lower power than their larger predecessors.

For more on this story, read New platform gives ARM-based chips a leg up on ZDNet UK.