Samsung today announced that it's expanding the strategic foundry collaboration with UK-based semiconductor design company ARM to its 7/5-nanometer FinFET process technology to maintain its dominance in the era of high-performance computing.
The Arm Artisan physical IP platform will be based on Samsung Foundry's 7LPP (7nm Low Power Plus) and 5LPE (5nm Low Power Early) process technologies which will make 3GHz+ performance a reality of ARM Cortex-A76 processor.
3GHz+ performance for ARM Cortex A76 CPU
“Collaboration with Arm in the fields of IP solutions is crucial to increase high-performance computing power and accelerate the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning capabilities,” said Ryan Sanghyun Lee, vice president of Foundry Marketing Team at Samsung Electronics.
Samsung presented the details of the recent updates its foundry roadmap from 7nm EUV development to 3nm Gate-All-Around Early technology at the Samsung Foundry Forum 2018 today in Seoul, South Korea.
The company has reiterated that it will have its 7LPP process technology ready for initial production in the second half of this year. The first process technology based on extreme ultra violet is in development and Samsung expects to complete it by the first half of 2019. The company's 5LPE technology will enable greater area scaling and ultra-low power benefits based on the latest innovations in the 7LPP process.
ARM's Artisan physical IP platform for Samsung's 7LPP and 5LPE process includes HD logic architecture, a complete suite of memory compilers and 1.8V and 3.3V GPIO libraries. The company is also going to provide Artisan POP IP solutions on its latest processor cores with ARM DynamIQ technology.
ARM unveiled the Cortex A76 back in May. It's the company's first CPU that only runs 64-bit kernel-level code and supports apps that use 32-bit A32 and T32 instruction sets in addition to 64-bit A64. What that means in simple terms is that all apps will run normally on this next-generation CPU. The company also unveiled its Mali G76 premium GPU design to complement the A76. We can expect devices powered by this CPU to arrive next year.
