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Actually, this announcement is about licensing ARM's physical IP to enable the Intel foundries to fab ARM SoCs for other companies, not about Intel building its

Actually, this announcement is about licensing ARM's physical IP to enable the Intel foundries to fab ARM SoCs for other companies, not about Intel building its own ARM SoCs. I'm pretty sure their long bet on x86 SoCs remains unchanged.

cm3 10y ago
For someone not versed in the specifics of chip engineering, what is the "physical IP"? Is it the process and how the wafers are made?
- j1vms 10y ago
  ARM's IP (intellectual property) consists of designs (that is, layouts) of ARM CPUs, SoCs, etc. It would very likely not include semiconductor manufacturing processes to achieve a final implementation of said design, though I may be incorrect on this point.
- BooneJS 10y ago
  If Soft IP were VHDL or Verilog files, then Physical IP is result of the physical design of those hardware descriptions into a database for base layer and masks.
- bedros 10y ago
  when designing SOC's you write your IP in verilog or vhdl, however high performance IP such as a CPU are designed specifically for certain chip process, (Intel's 10nm or TSMC's 16nm) and you don't get it in source code (verilog) instead you buy the physical IP (sometimes call hard IP) which is literally bolted to the die next to your design and wired with your design. So, if I'm designing mobile SOC and need 2Ghz CPU in my SOC design, I check with Intel or TSMC to see if they have HardIP of that CPU that I need.
snuxoll 10y ago
> I'm pretty sure their long bet on x86 SoCs remains unchanged. For the time being Intel has killed any remaining products that could hope to compete with ARM, that's why there is no non-pro Surface 4 because Intel killed Braxton and any successor products.
- kikoreis 10y ago
  Yeah, it's certainly true that the existing SoC product plans were canned. But a lot will need to happen before Intel comes to the point of reevaluating its x86 ISA platform strategy.

cm3 10y ago

For someone not versed in the specifics of chip engineering, what is the "physical IP"? Is it the process and how the wafers are made?

j1vms 10y ago
ARM's IP (intellectual property) consists of designs (that is, layouts) of ARM CPUs, SoCs, etc. It would very likely not include semiconductor manufacturing processes to achieve a final implementation of said design, though I may be incorrect on this point.
BooneJS 10y ago
If Soft IP were VHDL or Verilog files, then Physical IP is result of the physical design of those hardware descriptions into a database for base layer and masks.
bedros 10y ago
when designing SOC's you write your IP in verilog or vhdl, however high performance IP such as a CPU are designed specifically for certain chip process, (Intel's 10nm or TSMC's 16nm) and you don't get it in source code (verilog) instead you buy the physical IP (sometimes call hard IP) which is literally bolted to the die next to your design and wired with your design. So, if I'm designing mobile SOC and need 2Ghz CPU in my SOC design, I check with Intel or TSMC to see if they have HardIP of that CPU that I need.

snuxoll 10y ago

> I'm pretty sure their long bet on x86 SoCs remains unchanged. For the time being Intel has killed any remaining products that could hope to compete with ARM, that's why there is no non-pro Surface 4 because Intel killed Braxton and any successor products.

kikoreis 10y ago
Yeah, it's certainly true that the existing SoC product plans were canned. But a lot will need to happen before Intel comes to the point of reevaluating its x86 ISA platform strategy.