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ARM announces new 28nm POP IP for Cortex-A53 and A7 processors

ARM has announced new POP IP for its popular Cortex-A53 and A7 processors using United Microelectronics Corporation’s 28nm HPC process technology.
By
February 4, 2016
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ARM has just announced a new POP IP, short for Processor Optimization Pack, for its popular Cortex-A53 and A7 processors. These latest packages are designed for United Microelectronics Corporation’s 28nm HPC process technology.

ARM’s POP IP offers its chip customers a comprehensive package of tools to develop new SoCs, and is designed to expedite development of its most popular products. For example, the package includes pre-designed core transistor and wiring layouts for manufacturing, in this case on UMC’s 28nm technology, optimized for performance, energy efficiency, and area. This is particularly useful for mid-sized companies that don’t want to spend a fortune on designing entire chips from scratch.

UMC’s 28HPC technology is the foundry’s second-generation High-K/Metal Gate (HKMG) 28nm process, offering power and performance improvements over the company’s volume production 28HPM. By using a tighter process control, UMC is also looking to decrease the total die area too, which helps to save on costs.

“Together, UMC and ARM are delivering a comprehensive 28nm platform including POP IP for two of the most successful ARM processor cores. This will enable optimized SoC implementations and keep pace with innovations in mobile, IoT and embedded markets.” – Will Abbey, ARM

While leading smartphone SoCs are pushing down to 20nm and 16nm, 28nm still remains a cost effective and mature process to quickly develop lower cost, energy efficient processors. The Cortex-A53 is now the go-to choice for most low power smartphone processors and the older A7 is also a useful low power core for products will a limited battery. We will likely see some of this POP IP utilized in SoCs designed for low power wearables and internet-of-things applications.

ARM's James Bruce talks about the future of mobile tech at CES 2016
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POP IP has become an increasingly important part of the semiconductor business, as it can drastically shorten the time to bring chips to market. ARM now offers POP IP for a wide range of its CPU and GPU technologies at various manufacturing nodes from the likes of TSMC, Samsung and Global Foundries, to name just a few.

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ARM Extends 28nm IP Leadership With Latest UMC 28HPC POPs

04 February 2016

Cambridge, UK, Feb. 4, 2016 – ARM has announced the immediate availability of the ARM® Artisan® physical IP platform and ARM POP™ IP for United Microelectronics Corporation’s UMC 28HPCU, an enhanced 28nm process technology.This extends ARM’s 28nm IP leadership, giving the ARM ecosystem the broadest availability for 28nm foundation IP across all of the major foundries. The comprehensive platform includes standard cell libraries and memory compilers and POP technology for the ARM Cortex®-A53 processor, one of the industry’s most widely-adopted 64-bit cores, and ARM Cortex-A7, the highly energy-efficient core which has powered more than a billion smartphones.

“The 28nm process node technology continues to be viewed as the right solution for an increasing number of power-constrained applications,” said Will Abbey, general manager, physical design group, ARM. “Together, UMC and ARM are delivering a comprehensive 28nm platform including POP IP for two of the most successful ARM processor cores. This will enable optimized SoC implementations to keep pace with innovations in mobile, IoT and embedded markets.”

The wide adoption of ARM foundation 28nm IP delivers consistent logic architecture across all leading foundries and enables greater flexibility for multi-sourcing. The benefits enable current and new SoC designs on 28nm to quickly meet the needs of billions of connected devices. By utilizing POP IP at UMC 28HPCU, UMC customers will be able to respond faster as market demands change and new opportunities emerge.

UMC is capitalizing on the long-node characteristics of 28nm as an increasing number of applications take advantage of its favorable cost and performance benefits. UMC 28HPCU is the foundry’s second-generation High-K/Metal Gate (HKMG) 28nm process, which exhibits power and performance improvements relative to UMC’s volume production 28HPM technology. Using tighter process control and SPICE models, UMC 28HPCU reduces power consumption and area at any given performance threshold.

“As one of the world’s only foundries capable of 28nm gate-last HKMG production, UMC is well-positioned to capitalize on our 28nm experience to bring 28HPCU into high volume manufacturing,” said S.C. Chien, vice president, corporate marketing, UMC. “Multiple customers from a variety of applications have engaged with UMC to design their products on 28HPCU. Our collaboration with long-time partner ARM enables UMC to offer a comprehensive design platform with POP IP for two of the most efficient ARM processor cores.”

Ends

Contacts:
Phil Hughes
Director of tech PR, ARM
+1 512-694-7382
phil.hughes@arm.com

About ARM

ARM (LSE: ARM, NASDAQ: ARMH.US) designs technology at the heart of the world’s most advanced digital products. We are enabling the development of new markets and transformation of industries and society, invisibly creating opportunity for a globally connected population. Our scalable, energy-efficient processor designs and related technologies deliver intelligence wherever computing happens, ranging from sensors to servers, including smartphones, tablets, digital TVs, enterprise infrastructure and the Internet of Things.

Our innovative technology is licensed by ARM Partners who have shipped more than 75 billion System on Chip (SoCs) containing our intellectual property. Together with our Connected Community, we are breaking down barriers to innovation for developers, designers and engineers, ensuring a fast, reliable route to market for leading electronics companies. Learn more and join the conversation at http://community.arm.com.

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