Arm has taped out its latest and most powerful Cortex processor – Cortex X4 – on TSMC's most advanced process – N3E.
www.electronicsweekly.com/, May. 30, 2023 –
Asked by Reuters if this meant Arm is about to sell discrete chips, Arm svp Chris Bergey (pictured) said: "Arm is not in the business of selling chips. That's not what we do."
In the past Arm has explained that it sometimes fabs a chip to demonstrate its capabilities to customers.
"In this new generation of CPU designs, we are taking our long-standing partnership with TSMC a step further through taping out the Cortex-X4 on the TSMC N3E process – an industry first," says Bergey, "this ensures that our ecosystem is ready to maximise the PPA benefits of our processor technologies once they are taped out.
The Cortex X4 is the fastest CPU Arm has ever built bringing 15% more performance compared to the Cortex-X3.
The new microarchitecture consumes 40% less power than Cortex-X3 on the same process.