Taiwan nurtures the next ARM

Rick Merritt, EETimes
7/20/2011 3:44 PM EDT

HSINCHU, Taiwan -- Meet Andes Technology Corp., Taiwan’s agile and ambitious answer to ARM Ltd.

Andes is perhaps the best nurtured of an emerging crop of processor core companies sprouting like weeds in the cracks of science parks and university institutes in greater China. With a staff of 106, it’s putting down roots here and in China’s market but has aspirations to break into the U.S. and Europe.

The company’s U.S.-trained founders are wisely aiming to cultivate Andes along the borders of markets owned by established players like ARM, MIPS and Tensilica before they consider going after host CPU sockets. Andes’ cores won’t vie head-to-head with the Cortex A-15 for the CPU slot in the iPad 3, but they’re already grabbing sockets away from ARM in a variety of less high-profile systems.

A closer look at Andes provides a glimpse into how Taiwan’s processor core upstarts may bootstrap themselves into the top tiers of tomorrow’s semiconductor industry.

Click here to read the full story in the July edition of EE Times Confidential.