She is a winsome wee thing, She is a handsome wee thing, She is a bonny wee thing, This sweet wee wife o' mine - Robert Burns
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ARM and Global Foundries push mobile chip development
CHIP DESIGNER ARM and AMD's semiconductor fab spinoff Global Foundries have inked a deal for developing the next generation of System-on-Chip (SoC) for mobile devices.
The new chip manufacturing platform they will build uses two GloFo 28nm process variants, namely its super low power (SLP) for mobile applications and the high performance (HP) for when some processing muscle is needed.
The joint SoC platform is based on the Cortex A9 processor and ARM's physical IP, but taps GloFo's experience with 28nm High-K Metal Gate process to create a proven reference design for manufacturers of smartphones, smartbooks, tablets and a host of other mobile devices.
With Intel failing to cause much of a stir in any mobile devices smaller than netbooks, ARM is set to be the dominant architecture for this segment of the industry, especially if 28nm chips can deliver on the 40 per cent increase in computing performance, 30 per cent decrease in power consumption and doubling of battery life over existing 40nm and 45nm designs that ARM and Global Foundries believe are possible with their joint design.
"The success of the next generation of mobile products will be increasingly dependent on their ability to deliver PC-class performance, a highly integrated rich media experience and longer battery life," said Chia Song Hwee, COO of Global Foundries.
Kevin Smith, vice president of segment marketing at ARM explained that the move not only helps Global Foundries increase its appeal in the mobile market, but also provides a 'shop window' for ARM customers looking at moving into 28nm.
While ARM has been displaying the first wafer based on this deal at Mobile World Congress, GloFo expects to start production on these next-generation technologies at Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany in the second half of the year. µ
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I knew people who claimed "I don't need a gui!" because they were PC fanboys back when the Mac was the primary GUI based os on the market. (Atari and Amiga were there, but not as popular in the states anyway.) Comments such as I "need Windows XP/7" are typically made out of misplaced loyalty to a product. Apple had systems with high resolution 24bit color displays and CD quality sound TEN YEARS before it became practical on a PC. The Amiga had preemtive multitasking 10 years before the PC. Microsoft has done nothing for the computer industry other than slow down progress. There were people who thought this whole "home computing thing" was a fad, and that mainframes were going to remain dominant. The era of the "PC" as we know it is going to pass, it may still have a place in the office, but then so do mainframes.
"i need Windows XP/7 compatible processor and OS"
You need? You fail, more like!
i need Windows XP/7 compatible processor and OS
That's it.
We'll see if at 22nm the power will drop, history has shown that smaller processes jometines just lead to more leakage. Fingers crossed.
Don't really know if they are going to be able to get smaller than 10nm... but i know that IBM has been working for a while in making processors out of a different material, like graphene, and it seems it's going quite well actually... So maybe by improving materials we may see the process advancing...
Anyone know the operating voltage range for this 28nm reference?
How much longer can this keep happening?? Are they going to make sub 10nm chips. If so how?? If not then what technology will we be switching to next?? I can't bear to think that systems could stall out at the same speed for a long time 'til they discover new physics.
I don't think Intel has been expecting SoC to do very much at either the 45nm or 32nm nodes. From the literature, they've been targeting SoCs to hit the streets at 22nm, which I think is expected in 2011.
22nm is a whole new ball game. At 22nm, SoCs will be much smaller and also consume much less power than they would at 32nm & 45nm. Not until these are available will we really see how competitive Intel's SoCs can be and whether or not ARM has a better solution. 22nm products ought to stir up a lot of excitement in the market.