"Right now them clever folks have to figure out new USB standards for the future generation (past A-53) chipsets as these new generation chips will all run at 1.2 volts rather than the  5 volts which is where the USB standard is stuck at right now."

I was curious as to who the bright folks were who were going to do this standards development for a new USB standard, etc.   This isn't something you think of third tier supplier type people in Taiwan and China as doing for the rest of the world.

So I went looking for the brains behind it all .....  who is the brain trust behind ARM product development that is good enough to send Chipzilla off packing to the showers in defeat, time after time after time no less?

Then I remembered, who were the original owners of the ACORN consortium that turned into ARM?   The company was founded as Advanced RISC Machines, ARM, a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and VLSI Technology.

Logically Apple has a hand in the pie, but they don't make real breakthroughs in hard science for much, Apple takes advantage of what other people invent, by and large.

So I went to lookin' for far future type development work associated with ARM.

Apple Signs TSMC For 16nm and 10nm Nodes

June 24, 2013

"According to DigiTimes, Apple has signed up TSMC for the finfet nodes – 16nm and 10nm –  which succeed the 20nm planar process.

DigiTimes says that TSMC will have enough capacity to run 50,000 20nm wafers a month in Q1 2014 and that volume production of Apple processors on 20nm will start in December.

TSMC has stated that 16nm production will start one year after 20nm planar – and 20nm planar started risk production in Q1 2013.

Next month, small-scale production of Apple processors will start at TSMC."


OK, Apple and TSMC are obviously players in the brain trust.


New Technologies

"As part of its strategy, GlobalFoundries continues to expand and accelerate its foundry offerings.  Within its new 300mm fab in New York, the company has begun ramping the plant for 28nm and 20nm technology. In 2013, the New York fab will be capable of running 30,000 wafers a month. At some point, the fab will capable of running 50,000 wafers a month.

Meanwhile, in September, GlobalFoundries rolled out its finFET technology for the 14nm node. GlobalFoundries is taking a “modular fin” approach with its bulk finFET offering, dubbed 14nm-XM. The 14nm-XM combines a 14nm-class fin with its 20nm back-end-of-line (BEOL) interconnect flow.

By taking the modular approach, the company has accelerated its process roadmap by a year. Early process design kits (PDKs) are available, with customer product tape-outs expected in 2013. Production, which is slated for 2014, will take place within GlobalFoundries’ new 300mm fab in New York.

Then, in October, rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) updated and accelerated its process roadmap. The world’s largest silicon foundry has accelerated its 16nm finFET efforts by one quarter and added a 10nm finFET technology to the roadmap. TSMC’s 10nm finFET process, dubbed CLN10FF, is expected to move into risk production close to the end of 2015.

GlobalFoundries moved to keep pace with TSMC. At IEDM, GlobalFoundries disclosed a 10nm finFET process, which is due out in 2015, or a year after 14nm finFET.  “We have accelerated (the 10nm finFET process),” Manocha said after his keynote at IEDM.

At 10nm, GlobalFoundries and others may be forced to extend 193nm immersion, while also going with a multiple patterning scheme. EUV is late to the party and may miss the 10nm node. “10nm will be optical,” he said. “We have evidence that we can do 7nm with immersion.”

Global Foundaries is in the brain trust, too.

Then I hit this little nugget that explains a lot about exactly whose brains are driving what ....  

"Collaboration at 28nm, 20nm and 14nm: IBM, Cadence, ARM, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Samsung"

http://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/1349-collaboration-28nm-20nm-14nm-ibm-c...

So, IBM and Cadence enter the role list of brain trust holders.

So, when you consider that some of these experts have moved recently from other companies, you might just throw "more of" IBM, Intel and HP into the brain trust that is currently driving ARM product development.   They might not intend to be, but they are there.

ARM never works alone, they always team up with the actual producer of the chipsets and the actual makers of the finished products.   ARM never vaporwares because they chase no rabbit but the ones that all three of the interested parties fully knows is workable.

If you buy into an ARM hard macro design, you get a guarantee from ARM.  ARM knows it will work at the advertised speed and yield rates because they have already DONE IT in full production on real production lines.    

ARM sample chips always seem to pan out good for that very same reason.  ARM doesn't stand alone in making up those specs, the folks who make the chips and the ones who used it first had a hand in creating those "expectations".    If you design a product around some ARM sample chips, it works that way in production very reliably.

Because of this cooperative development style and by working so closely with Linaro (Linux) and the other standards bodies ARM has the edge in anything new, as far as getting it right and getting it done much faster.

Chipzilla and Microsoft just don't do that -- they try to tell the standards people what they are going to do after the fact.

They treat their major customers the same way.

Then they twist their arms and screw with them when their customers try to make something else with somebody else's chips or operating system.