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Arm introduces Arm Total Design to Further Simplify SoC Development

Arm this week introduced its Arm Total Design program for Neoverse CSS, an ecosystem approach to facilitate developing and delivering custom system-on-chip (SoC) solutions based on Arm’s Neoverse Compute Subsystems (CSS). The initiative brings together industry leaders, including ASIC design houses, IP vendors, EDA tool providers, foundries, and firmware developers, to simplify and expedite the creation of Neoverse CSS-based systems.

Graphic showing the elements of Arm Total Design.
Arm Total Design

Partners within the Arm Total Design ecosystem gain preferential access to Neoverse CSS, enabling them to innovate, reduce time to market, and lower the costs associated with building custom silicon. This ecosystem covers all stages of silicon development. It aims to make specialized solutions based on Arm Neoverse widely available across various infrastructure domains, such as AI, cloud, networking, and edge computing.

The new Arm Total Design Program provides pre-integrated and validated intellectual property (IP) and electronic design automation (EDA) tools from partners like Alphawave Semi, Cadence, Rambus, and Synopsys to accelerate silicon design. Design services from partners like ADTechnology, Broadcom, Capgemini, Faraday, Socionext, and Sondrel offer expertise on Neoverse CSS and other Arm IP. Foundry partners, including Intel Foundry Services and TSMC, provide technology optimized for advanced process nodes while leading infrastructure firmware providers like AMI offer commercial software and firmware support.

Arm Total Design empowers ASIC design houses to rapidly deploy new designs, enables IP vendors to pre-integrate and validate advanced IP for Neoverse CSS, and supports EDA partners in streamlining SoC design with cutting-edge tools and flows. The ecosystem is committed to lowering the cost and friction inherent in creating performant, efficient custom silicon, addressing the industry’s insatiable demand for AI-driven computing infrastructure.

Furthermore, Neoverse CSS is evolving to support emerging chiplet technology, ensuring industry-wide alignment on fundamental interfaces and system architectures to facilitate innovation in multi-die chiplet SoC designs. This initiative aims to enhance accessibility to custom, workload-optimized silicon, meeting the demands of an AI-accelerated future.

Analysis

Arm’s new program takes an ecosystem approach to simplify the development of new products based on Arm’s Neoverse architecture. By bringing together key players in the semiconductor industry, including ASIC design houses, IP vendors, EDA tool providers, foundries, and firmware developers, Arm is fostering collaboration and innovation that will accelerate the development of specialized silicon.

Arm Total Design promotes collaboration, accelerates innovation, simplifies the development of custom silicon solutions, and adapts to emerging technologies, ultimately helping meet the growing demand for specialized compute solutions in various industries. It should significantly reduce the time and resources required to bring custom silicon solutions to market.

Delivering processors to market is a complex undertaking. Arm Total Design marks a new phase in custom silicon for infrastructure, expanding the Arm Neoverse portfolio and enabling partners to create tailored Arm-based solutions more quickly and efficiently.

Disclosure: The author is an industry analyst, and NAND Research an industry analyst firm, that engages in, or has engaged in, research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, which may include those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.