Arm Ltd. started working on the semiconductor six months back.
British semiconductor and software design company Arm Ltd is working to make its own chip, Financial Times reported on Sunday. With this, the company is seen to showcase its products’ capabilities to attract new customers and fuel growth ahead of its initial public offering in the U.S. later this year.
Arm Ltd, owned by Japanese technology investor SoftBank Group Corp, will reportedly team up with manufacturing partners to build a new semiconductor. The company has further created a new “solutions engineering” team that will spearhead the development of these prototype chips for mobiles, laptops, and other electronics.
The Cambridge, England-headquartered company specializes in the development of processors, chips, and software that are used in a variety of electronic devices. Leading tech giants including Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, and MediaTek use Arm’s technology to create their products.
The new under-production chip is more advanced than any other so far, the company’s executives told FT; adding that Arm started working on the semiconductor six months back. The British chip designer does not plan to sell or license the product to other companies and is currently only working on a prototype.
Earlier this month, Arm tied up with Intel’s chip contract manufacturing division – Intel Foundry Services to make mobile phone chips and other products that use its technology in Intel factories. The multigeneration agreement will enable chip designers to build low-power compute system-on-chips (SoCs) on the Intel 18A process.
Last month, FT reported that Arm is seeking to raise prices for its chip designs to boost revenues ahead of its IPO in New York this year. According to the report, the company would charge customers based on the value of the device. Previously, Arm charged chipmakers royalties for using its designs based on a chip’s value. As the average smartphone cost is several times more than the cost of the chip, the move will result in a multi-fold increase in the company’s earnings from the sale of its chip design.
