May 3, 2012 -- TSMC today announced that its 28-nm high-performance ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core processor test chip achieved 3.1-GHz performance under typical conditions.

The TSMC 28-nm HPM (high performance for mobile applications) process technology that achieved these results addresses applications requiring both high speed and low leakage power. Using various design sign-off conditions, ARM A9 at TSMC 28HPM delivers performance speed range from 1.5GHz to 2.0GHz, suitable for mobile computing, and up to 3.1GHz for high-performance uses. With its wide performance-to-leakage coverage, the 28-nm HPM process was developed for devices targeting networking, tablet and mobile consumer product applications.

The ARM Cortex-A9 silicon implementation and validation is part of TSMC's ongoing technology benchmarking effort to demonstrate performance, power and area (PPA) capabilities at the system-on-chip (SOC) level for each process-technology node.

"At 3.1GHz, this 28HPM dual-core processor implementation is twice as fast as its counterpart at TSMC 40nm under the same operating conditions," said Cliff Hou, TSMC Vice President, R&D. "This work demonstrates how ARM and TSMC can satisfy high-performance market demands. With other implementation options, 28HPM is also highly suited for a wide range of markets that prize performance and power efficiency."

The Cortex-A9 processor is available for license from ARM and is aimed at mobile, high-performance consumer, and enterprise SoC requiring high performance and low power.

The test chip results demonstrate that the combination of the most-advanced process technology, best-practices circuit-design techniques, and proven chip-implementation methodology lead to the highest PPA landmark in an SOC. The results confirm the benefits of TSMC's Open Innovation Platform (OIP) design ecosystem that promotes innovation for the semiconductor design community, ecosystem partners and TSMC's complete technology portfolio.