Chartered, Socle Offer ARM926EJ Development Kit For 65nm Low Power Process

– Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, one of the world's top dedicated foundries, and Socle Technology Corporation, a leading SoC design services company in Taiwan, today announced the availability of a development kit for designers using the ARM 9 processor core and targeting Chartered’s 65-nanometer low power manufacturing process. The kit features a hardened ARM926EJ-S core operating at over 500MHz, and provides support for all necessary interfaces, peripherals and software for a feature-rich ARM-based SoC. The ARM926EJ Chartered 65 nm test chip coded as CMPU491A was completed using a comprehensive solution from Chartered Design Enablement portfolio. The high speed 65LP Advantage Library from ARM, 65 LP Advantage SP SRAM compiler, Low profile general purpose I/Os from Aragio, and PLL from True Circuits Inc. were all integrated as part of the CMPU491A test chip. The ARM926EJ hardcore itself has also passed the Chartered DFM review and is ready to be integrated into customer's product designs.

The development kits for the Chartered 65-nm process extend a long relationship between the two companies that includes similar kits targeting the foundry’s 0.13-micron and 90-nm process technologies. The latest solution has been taped out on the most recent 65nm silicon multi-project wafer projected to fab out before the end of the year.

“The Socle development kits and design services have proven to be a reliable and efficient way for our mutual customers to design and manufacture a wide variety of ARM-based products using Chartered’s leading-edge manufacturing processes. Offering a full breadth of world class 65nm design enablement in our 300-millimeter wafer fab brings great confidence to our customer base.” Said Kay Chai Ang, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing. “The combination of our technologies and customer support can greatly reduce development time and improve overall quality of an ARM-based SoC.”

The development kit contains CMPU491A test chip and ARM CPU board, SoC Development Kit which provides industrial standard high speed interfaces such as DDR controller, USB2.0 host/device controller and PCI as well as popular low speed peripherals such as Watch Dog Timer, Timer, GPIO and I2C, and complete Board Supporting Package (BSP) and drivers for embedded Linux.

“CMPU491A is a worldwide number one 65nm ARM926EJ test chip which includes a 65nm ARM926EJ hardcore. It takes advantage of the performance integration and low power benefits of the Chartered 65nm process, and provides customers with a highly effective way to achieve timing closure their complex designs,” said Owen Bair, Chief Operating Officer of Socle. “For applications requiring this type of embedded processing solution, we are confident this partnership can deliver significant time and cost savings.”