Arm creates group to define chiplet standards

The semiconductor licensing firm says it is addressing itself to a central industry challenge, namely: how can stakeholders push performance boundaries in a complex AI-accelerated computing landscape, while controlling costs and yield?

It believes chiplets offer a compelling solution. Chiplets package complex systems in a single solution on a number of smaller dies instead of one single larger monolithic die. This raises the possibility of composability – offering a bespoke solution by reusing a set of existing or standardised chiplets, each optimised for cost-performance.

However, to achieve this, designers need to align on non-differentiating choices in chiplet partitioning, and understand their impact on interface standards. A common approach is needed. Hence this new framework:

The goal of the alliance is to develop the Arm Chiplet System Architecture (CSA), which will enable greater reuse of components (physical design IP, soft IP etc) between multiple suppliers. The group covers multiple market segments from mobile to automotive to infrastructure.

As well as forming the CSA Group, Arm is also updating the AMBA open industry standard. AMBA CHI is high speed, credited and packetised, which makes it ideal for chiplets. Arm says it is now formally released.

In a blog post, Richard Grisenthwaite, EVP, Chief Architect and Fellow at Arm, said: "While mass market adoption of chiplets is likely to take many years, we’re excited by the potential these standards have to expedite the journey. The flexibility of the Arm platform is enabling the emerging chiplet ecosystem today...We are bringing the ecosystem together around new critical standards and programs, like the recently announced Arm Total Design, that will enable a thriving, diverse chiplet ecosystem built on Arm."