ARM has made several enhancements to the ARM DesignStart program, expanding the program to include the ARM Cortex-M3 processor and announcing zero upfront license fees for both the Cortex-M0 and Cortex-M3 processors, providing the fastest path forward for evaluating, designing and bringing custom SoCs to market.
DesignStart has been providing fast access to ARM IP since before 2010. Two years ago, ARM announced the availability of the enhanced Cortex-M0 system in DesignStart, which kick-started a new wave of ultra-efficient, custom system-on-chip (SoC) development. Thanks to DesignStart, several hundred more embedded designers, startups, and OEMs are now participating in the collaborative ARM ecosystem. Their resulting custom SoCs designs are enabling embedded intelligence in a diverse range of IoT and connected devices. ARM has been listening to feedback and consistently focusing on improving its offering. So today, ARM is enhancing DesignStart to further pave the way to success for developers looking to design custom SoCs with confidence, and for innovators who want to bring new ideas to market rapidly and with minimal risk.
Enhanced DesignStart: Quickest, cheapest, lowest-risk route to success in embedded solutions
In the quest to make embedded processing technology more accessible for IoT and intelligent, connected solution development, ARM has made several enhancements to the DesignStart program, providing the fastest path forward for evaluating, designing and bringing custom SoCs to market.
The enhanced DesignStart program offers:
It's amazing when one thinks about the fact that more than 20 billion chips have shipped with Cortex-M0 or Cortex-M3 processors in them, and half of those shipped in just the last couple of years. The popularity of these processors is driven by their versatility and extremely small size and power characteristics, which can enable even battery-less, energy-harvesting applications. The Cortex-M0, for example, can fit on the cross section of a human hair. You can find some examples of the innovation that's enabled by these processors on ARM's Innovation Hub.
Unlocking intelligence and differentiation for 1 trillion IoT devices
At ARM Techcon last fall, SoftBank Chairman, and President, Masayoshi Son, provided insights on why SoftBank acquired ARM and the role it plays in his vision of 1 trillion connected devices globally. To achieve this vision, embedded intelligence must be highly accessible and cost-efficient, across a common platform.
To fully unlock this vision, custom SoCs are necessary. They can reduce complexity and cost, increase differentiation and efficiency as well as simplify the supply chain. A new whitepaper by Tirias Research highlights both the top-line growth and bottom-line profit benefits a custom SoC brings to an OEM, stating:
"An ASIC may be able to add more features to the product for an up sell. The bottom line is improved by reducing board size and reducing expensive discrete components."
ARM is already seeing a number of partners reaping the benefits of custom SoCs – for example, S3 Group has developed an ARM-based custom SoC for an industrial control application that reduced power requirements by 70 percent, cost of parts by 80 percent and PCB size by 75 percent.
But what truly unlocks the potential of these custom SoCs and accelerates them to market is the extensive amount of software and middleware that's available for ARM-based platforms already. In addition to this, there is readily available open source support, tooling and a thriving ecosystem to build further value into the solution.
Making it happen
ARM is aggressively working to deliver on Son-san's bold vision. With the enhanced DesignStart program, ARM has expanded the possibilities for silicon design teams to innovate on two of the world's most popular processor cores – the Cortex-M0 and Cortex-M3 processors – which are shipped in a half of a million SoCs every hour. This will enable more opportunities to customize designs that scale from the tiniest of sensors to highly-integrated SoCs that power everyday intelligence.
With instant access to start development, a full system platform to enable a very low-risk design, tested software and no upfront costs for ARM or subsystem IP, the risks in getting to market quickly are substantially lowered, truly enabling new ideas to take shape. Prototype and initial samples are royalty free. Even when millions of devices have been shipped, the total royalty is less than an engineer's salary in most tech locations, but by then developers are already on their way to changing the world.
ARM is amazed at the incredible ideas and solutions the DesignStart community has already come up with and is constantly striving to enable and support those. Join the DesignStart community or email designstart@arm.com to provide suggestions or feedback to ARM.
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About ARM
ARM technology is at the heart of a computing and connectivity revolution that is transforming the way people live and businesses operate. From the unmissable to the invisible, our advanced, energy-efficient processor designs are enabling the intelligence in 100 billion silicon chips and securely powering products from the sensor to the smartphone to the supercomputer. With more than 1,000 technology partners, including the world's most famous business and consumer brands, we are driving ARM innovation into all areas compute is happening inside the chip, the network, and the cloud.
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