ARM today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Intel to accelerate development and implementation of ARM SoCs on the latter’s 10nm fabrication process. Intel has always had an edge over the likes of Samsung and TSMC in the fabrication process, and this is the first time that it is opening up its foundries to a third-party.
The long-term partnership will see ARM’s Artisan Physical IP being available on the 10nm fab from Intel. Theoretically, the partnership should also provide ARM customers with access to Intel’s foundries. As per the announcement from ARM, the initial POP IP on the 10nm process will be for “two future advanced ARM Cortex-A processor cores designed for mobile computing applications in either ARM big.LITTLE or stand-alone configurations.” Interestingly, at IDF 2016, Intel also announced a list of new customers that will have access to its foundries. This includes the likes of Spreadtrum and LG that will be developing various processors, including mobile SoCs. LG has been toying around with its in-house chipset for quite some time and developing it on Intel’s advanced 10nm fabrication process will provide it with a competitive advantage over Samsung and Qualcomm.
