Arm chips are easier to make in Intel’s chip factories by agreement

Intel Foundry Services and ARM have signed an agreement that should make it easier to make ARM socs on Intel’s forthcoming 18A process. With the agreement, Intel hopes that external companies will have more Arm chips made at Intel.

Of the agreement Intel and Arm will optimize their chip design and chip manufacturing technologies to make it easier to produce Arm socs on Intel 18A. This should enable better performance, lower power and lower costs for Arm cores produced with Intel 18A, the two companies reported on Wednesday.

Since Arm does not produce chips itself, the agreement is mainly intended for third-party companies that produce chips based on Arm designs. This agreement should make it more attractive for these companies to have the Arm chips made at Intel Foundry Services. The deal will initially target Arm socks for smartphones and other mobile devices. Later, the agreement could potentially be expanded to chips for the automotive, IoT, data center, aviation and government sectors.

Intel announced in March 2021 that it wanted to make chips for external companies, including Arm chips. The company is therefore investing in its production capacity and more chip factories are being built, including in Germany. Intel 18A is the most advanced process on Intel’s current technology roadmap. According to the current schedule, the node should be ready for production in the second half of 2024.