ARM and GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced a long-term strategic relationship to provide their customers with a SoC enablement program.

To support the long-term relationship, GLOBALFOUNDRIES and ARM have signed a broad agreement on processor implementation and circuit optimization to provide mutual customers with a robust enablement program geared towards next-generation applications.

The SoC enablement program, built around a full suite of ARM Physical IP, Fabric IP and Processor IP, will deliver customers unparalleled design flexibility on GLOBALFOUNDRIES? most advanced HKMG semiconductor manufacturing capabilities. The collaborative efforts of the partnership will initially focus on enabling SoC products which use the low power and high performance ARM Cortex -A9 processor on GLOBALFOUNDRIES 28nm HKMG process. The characteristics of GLOBALFOUNDRIES 28nm "Gate First" HKMG technology is optimized for high performance processing with minimal leakage making it a good choice for advanced mobile solutions.

"This announcement reflects our business value and strategy of providing best in class processor implementation by marrying our own processor and physical IP with world class manufacturing semiconductor technology," said Warren East, chief executive officer, ARM. "This collaboration with GLOBALFOUNDRIES and their commitment to delivering leading edge technology makes them an ideal partner to accelerate the adoption of ARM processor based technology at 28nm."

"This relationship further advances our strong focus to partner with industry leaders in processor design to deliver manufacturing and technology excellence at the leading edge," said Doug Grose, chief executive officer, GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "This highly complementary partnership leverages ARM?s architectural leadership along with GLOBALFOUNDRIES advanced technology to enable the deployment of 28nm SoC designs with exceptional performance for next-generation consumer devices."

ARM?s product offering includes 32-bit RISC microprocessors, graphics processors, video engines, enabling software, cell libraries, embedded memories, high-speed connectivity products, peripherals and development tools.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is a semiconductor manufacturing company. The company launched in March 2009 through a partnership between AMD and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC).