Recently, Samsung (News - Alert) has developed 14-nanometer (nm) FinFET process technology for its mobile SoC customers as it introduced tape-out of multiple development vehicles. The company has partnered with its major design and IP partners for this purpose.
System-on-a-chip (SoC) technology brings together all the required electronic circuits and parts of a "system" on a single integrated circuit. This circuit is usually called as a microchip.
Samsung and its ecosystem partners ARM (News - Alert), Cadence, Mentor and Synopsys have introduced multiple test chips. These chips range from a complete ARM Cortex-A7 processor deployment and a SRAM-based chip that can operate near threshold voltage levels and also various analog IP. According to Samsung, the Cortex-A7 deployment on FinFET shows the low-power component of the ARM big.LITTLE processor configuration/technology.
Allowing the processors to operate in tandem in a big.LITTLE configuration, Cortex-A7 processor's microarchitecture concentrates on offering optimum energy efficiency. This offers the ultimate combination of high-performance with ultra low power consumption.
“As we move closer to true mobile computing, chip designers are eager to take advantage of the gains in performance and significantly lower power of 14nm FinFET to deliver PC like user experience on a mobile device,” said Dr. Kyu-Myung Choi, senior vice president of System LSI infrastructure design center, Device Solutions Division, Samsung Electronics. “The design complexities at 14nm require complete harmony between the process technology, design methodology, tools and IPs. We are synchronizing all the key elements.”
Recently, the company filed a complaint against Ericcson with the U.S. International Trade Commission. In its complaint, the company requested for a sales ban on some of Ericsson's (News - Alert) products. Ericsson had drawn the first blood in the end of November when the company filed a lawsuit against Samsung in the U.S. This was done after two years of negotiations failed to reach a mutually acceptable conclusion.
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Edited by Rachel Ramsey