- Arm also announced a strategic partnership with Silicon Catalyst, an incubator focused exclusively on helping startups accelerate silicon solutions
- Startups will have access to a broad portfolio of Arm-based processors like IP from the Arm Cortex-A, -R and -M processor families, select Arm Mali GPUs, ISPs
has announced the launch of Arm Flexible Access for Startups which will offer early-stage silicon startups zero-cost access to a wide range of Arm’s leading IP. It will also provide them with global support and training resources that will help them to start their journey to commercial silicon and business scale. Arm also announced a strategic partnership with Silicon Catalyst, an incubator focused exclusively on helping startups accelerate silicon solutions. Silicon Catalyst members will be able to access Arm IP, Electronic design automation (EDA tools), and prototype silicon for free.
Dipti Vachani, senior vice president and general manager, automotive and IoT line of business, Arm said, “In today’s challenging business landscape, enabling innovation is critical – now more than ever, startups with brilliant ideas need the fastest, most trusted route to success and scale. Arm Flexible Access for Startups offers new silicon entrants a faster, more cost-efficient path to working prototypes, resulting in strengthened investor confidence for future funding.”
Experiment, design, and prototype
It said that early-stage startups will be able to access a range of IP at no cost which will allow them to experiment, design, and prototype with various Arm solutions throughout the product development cycle. arm defined early-stage startups as startups with up to $5 million in funding. Startups meeting these criteria will have access to a broad portfolio of Arm-based processors like IP from the Arm Cortex-A, -R and -M processor families, select Arm Mali GPUs, ISPs, and other foundational SoC building blocks. Startups will also be able to boost their in-house skills and experience with access to Arm’s ecosystem of silicon designers, software developers, support, training, and tools.
Facing the increasing complexity of SoC designs
There has been a new wave of silicon startups due to emerging use cases in areas such as AI at the edge, autonomous vehicles, and IoT. Report from Semico Research showed that there has a ten-fold increase in funding from 2016 to 2019. In the last five years, silicon startups have received more than $ 1.3 billion in funding. Over a third of startups that have emerged in the past five years are targeting automotive, with another third targeting IoT applications.
It also said that in terms of challenges, semiconductor startups have small engineering teams facing the increasing complexity of SoC designs. They also face the need to satisfy a growing range of customer and market requirements in the shortest timeframes possible.
