ARM Community: SoC Design - ARM Community

The System-on-a-Chip (SoC) ecosystem spans the gamut of designs from high-end servers to low-power mobile consumer segments. A large and heterogeneous set of players (foundries, IP vendors, SoC integrators, etc.) has a stake in fostering the success of the ecosystem model. While the integrated device manufacturer (IDM) model has undeniable value in terms of bringing to bear large resources in tackling technology barriers, one could argue that the rapid-fire smartphone revolution we have experienced in the last five years owes in large part to the broad-based innovation enabled by the SoC ecosystem model. This blog examines how the changing dynamics of SoCs are driving changes in verification requirements, tools and flows and thereby changing the timing sign-off paradigm.

ARM should be applauded for the significant role it has played in bootstrapping and further enabling the SoC ecosystem model. By licensing its processor and digital IP instead of manufacturing its own chips, ARM has freed its partners to aggressively build and refine their products without being reliant on general purpose devices or rigid form factors. And it did not hurt that ARM’s advantage in the ...

Early last week, GLOBALFOUNDRIES jointly announced with ARM another important milestone in our longstanding collaboration to deliver optimized SoC solutions for ARM® processor designs on GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ leading-edge process technology. We’re extending the agreement to include our 20nm planar offering, next-generation 3D FinFET transistor technology, and ARM’s Mali™ GPUs.

Our collaboration with ARM goes back many years, and its evolution parallels some of the critical developments in the larger semiconductor industry during the same timeframe. We began this work back when the 65nm node was the bleeding edge and our biggest concern was the integration of strained silicon to boost electron mobility. (Those were the days!) Of course today we face a daunting list of new challenges ranging from multiple patterning and EUV lithography to new device architectures such as high-k metal gate (HKMG) and FinFET. But the goal remains essentially the s...