British Chip Designer Arm Seeks Manufacturing Partners To Develop New Advanced Chip, Spark Fear In Competitors

Softbank Group Corp SFTBF SFTBY owned British chip designer Arm Ltd is developing its chip to drive profits and attract investors to a U.S. initial public offering.
Arm proposes collaborating with manufacturing partners to develop the new chip, Financial Times reports citing familiar sources.
Arm, which traditionally sells its blueprint designs to chip manufacturers, expects the prototype to demonstrate the power and capabilities of its designs to the broader market.
Reportedly, Arm's newest chip, which started work in the past six months, is "more advanced" than ever before.
It has built a new "solutions engineering" team led by chip industry veteran Kevork Kechichian that will lead the development of these prototype chips for mobile devices, laptops, and other electronics.
The team will also expand on Arm's existing efforts to enhance the performance and security of designs and bolster developer access to its products.
The chipmaker's moves has stoked fears in the semiconductor industry, posing a competitor to some of its biggest customers, like Media Tek Inc MDTKF or Qualcomm Inc QCOM.
Arm insists there are no plans to sell or license the product and that it only works on a prototype.
"Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google thought it could demonstrate the world's best Android OS, so it built the Pixel phone. Microsoft Corp MSFT thought it was the master of Windows, so it built Surface laptops. So, naturally, Arm thinks it can build best-in-class Arm-based chips, better than chip developers out there," said Brady Wang, a semiconductor analyst with Counterpoint Research.
But making chips is even more challenging than building devices, Wang said. "It will need generation after generation of development efforts."
Price Action: SFTBF shares closed lower by 0.36% at $37.87 on Friday.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons

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