Will Arm make and sell its own processors? We're gonna go with no

Arm has designed its own example of a high-end processor, and is getting samples of the chip made for select customers. There was a report in The Financial Times the other day with the headline, "Arm makes its own advanced prototype semiconductor." Although the newspaper did its best to cover the nuances of this tale, some …

[lglethal]

A conversation at ARM Headquarters...

Look Arm, we need you to start generating more revenue before we put you up for your IPO. So you're going to start trying to force a bigger cut from licences, OK?

What do you mean that will hurt in the long term? Firms will move away to other platforms to avoid the extra cost? So? That will happen after the IPO! So get to it, I want my sales bonus...

[45RPM]

If they aren’t going to sell it, I can’t see the point of this work. Surely investors will see through any transparent ploy to pump the price?

It can’t merely be a device to demonstrate the flexibility of the architecture can it? After all, the flexibility and power efficiency is well known, covering everything from the 8c (yes! Cents!) PY32F002 through to the mighty M1 Ultra and everything in between. It can’t be to demonstrate the efficiency of the process either because pff! 10nm!? Even Intel can manage that - and some arm chips are now sub 3nm.

So why? Seems like a waste of money.

[Catkin]

"I've got a great idea" doesn't hit as hard as "I've got a great idea and here's it in action". Further "I've got a great idea and here's one of your competitors on the inside track" is less appealing than "here's my idea in action and your competitors have no advantages over you".

[Roland6]

>If they aren’t going to sell it, I can’t see the point of this work.

The way I read this, the typical ARM blueprint isn't complete, this is thus a way of ARM developing a more complete set of chip blueprints that is partners can more readily fabricate. This I see as an advantage if it is to really go head-to-head with Intel and AMD, who both have compatible families and generations of complete chip designs under the x86 and x64 banners, I suspect the market will happily port software to "ARM"(*) but not to Dell ARM, IBM ARM, Apple ARM etc.

(*) I was going to use xARM to indicate an equivalence to x86, x64, but I see xARM is a robotic arm...

[well meaning but ultimately self defeating]

Plan B

They realise that their increasingly egregious rent extraction from their customers has accelerated RISC-V adoption and this is the first step to their post monopoly world. They used to be seen as Switzerland but are increasingly perceived as Russia, and not a reliable partner.

Hiding behind a demonstration chip is a thin veil that is easily seen through.

My bet is they end up becoming a fabless manufacturer over time.

[John H Woods]

"We're gonna go with no"

Good to see El Reg adhering to Betteridge's law of headlines

[StrangerHereMyself]

Depends

If ARM can pull off the licensing change to charge mobile handset manufacturers according to a percentage of the ASP (average selling price) of their products than there will be no need for them to make their own SoC's. However, if this fails (for whatever reason) the company might be inclined to compete directly with vendors like Qualcomm who charge much, much more for their finished products than the few cents ARM is raking in for licensing their IP.

So the jury's still out on this one.

IIRC ARM also made a CHERI (capability based computing) processor to demonstrate its usefulness in securing next-generation smartphones.