TSMC takes 28nm ARM Cortex-A9 to 3.1GHz

And you thought your phone’s 1.5GHz processor was a blazing bullet. TSMC has taken a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 based on TSMC’s 28nm HPM process up to an incredible speed of 3.1GHz. The chip that TSMC managed to get up to this speed usually has a maximum clock speed of 2GHz.

“At 3.1 GHz 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, Research and Development. “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.”

“TSMC’s high performance 28HPM process is suitable for a wide range of advanced ARM-processor based applications, extending from high-frequency, performance-orientated computing devices to power sensitive applications,” said Jim Nicholas, Vice President of Marketing, Processor Division, ARM. “The collaboration between ARM, TSMC and our ecosystem partners has delivered an extensible implementation platform that enables flexibility in performance and power management tradeoffs for next generation products.”

This processor is unlikely to find itself in smart phones and will instead be aimed at high-performance uses like ARM-based servers, desktops and notebooks.

Sources :

TSMC: http://www.tsmc.com/tsmcdotcom/PRListingNewsAction.do?language=E

Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/03/tsmc-ramps-28nm-arm-cortex-a9-chip-to-3-1ghz/