Malaysia is accelerating semiconductor design cycles by leveraging ARM’s intellectual property (IP), plus its 50-year manufacturing base, in order to shorten timelines while expanding its own homegrown capabilities.
Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir, Economy Minister, commented recently that Malaysia is leveraging its established strengths, at least in backend manufacturing, to facilitate semiconductor design with global architecture partnerships.
“Number one, we have to actually recognise the fact that Malaysia already has some strength, especially in terms of talent and expertise… for the past decades, we have proven our expertise of testing, equipment and packaging,” Akmal said. “But at the same time, building on those strengths, Malaysia has embarked on a collaboration with Arm, for example, to gain access to IP design.”
ARM Holdings is a British semiconductor company that has been at the forefront of computing, both in the past and in recent years. Its patents and chip design have served as the bedrock for Apple’s own M Series silicon, Qualcomm’s very own Snapdragon IP for both mobile and laptops, and more recently the chipset that currently powers the NVIDIA RTX Spark chipset, which the GPU co-designed with Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek.
Malaysia’s deal with ARM dates back to early last year; our government inked a deal with the British chipmaker to pay it US$250 million (~RM1 billion) over 10 years. In return, ARM would provide us with “a slew of semiconductor-related licenses and know-how”. All of this will in turn be used to help local companies design their own chips, with a target of semiconductor exports totalling RM1.2 trillion by 2030.
In addition to his statement, Akmal also officially launched six homegrown chips that he says have an estimated combined sales potential of RM300 million, all of which were developed within the Malaysia Semiconductor IC Design park.”Federal and state semiconductor hubs should complement rather than duplicate one another, creating a unified national ecosystem rather than isolated centres. On concerns regarding potential investment overlaps between federal plans and individual state projects, such as in Sarawak and Selangor, each state brings distinct value chain advantages,” he said.
(Source: The Star, Bernama Biz)
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